9 Kings 
Save
Patch #09: New cards! New achievements! Quick restart!Jun 13, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsPatch #09... had to be a cool update right? Brace yourselves for some new content, folks.Steam Reviews: Your Feedback MattersWe've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. List of changes (0.7.81): NEW CONTENT: 14 new achievements are now available. A cool achievement screen is now in-game (track your progress, admire your shiny gold medals)New card: Gigantify (Rainbow Tome)New card: Echoform (Rainbow Tome)New card: Haste (Rainbow Tome)New card: Temple (Rainbow Building)New card: Ogre (Rainbow Troop)Added a credits screen (there's a lot of people we needed to thank) QoL:Added a quick restart button (you asked, you got it)Added more volume levels for audio customizationNavigation issues during Perk selection on computers with peripherals should no longer occurSmoother intro transitions Faster transitions (Prophet screen, Stat screen)Skippable Prophet textUI visual tweaksUI is becoming keyboard/controller friendly (WIP)Fixes/Balancing:Fixed a localization issue that caused severe lag in some systems (sorry!)Spores from Mycelium now properly inherit buffs from Blacksmiths and BeaconsFlametower is now properly getting movement speed boostsEarthworking a level 3 Concabulator will give you 2 Concabulators and 1 Broken Cabulator againTrappers now gain a bit of attack speed when leveling upFixed a conflict caused by ending a run during an animationRe-enchant now properly works with all enchantments.Improved Executioner targeting systemFixed visual display of ranged projectiles (they would randomly be invisible)Damage pop ups now always display actual damage output of melee troopsFixed a glitch that charged 30 gold whenever using Explore/Earthworks during Endless Mode HOTFIXED: The Dispenser now processes attack speed properly again After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. We're looking forward to watching you check out what the new stuff does!UP NEXT: We are posting a full road map next week, so you know exactly what to expect from us. We're working hard and we can't wait to share all our new ideas with you. We've also been reading all your requests. Know we'll address a lot of them in the next weeks! Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team Love, Sad Socket team9 Kings and other useful gamesJun 6, 2025 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunI've been feeling spiritually, physically, and cognitively exhausted recently - jelly of limb, soul, and mind - and 9 Kings is picking up the slack something tremendous. The idea is that each king has a themed card deck, used to build structures and units to defend your base against the other 8. Each king's deck contains its own synergies (a bad corporate word we've somehow adopted in lieu of the superior 'interfuckery' or 'mingle-jinks', but I'll use for simplicity's sake), and the cards you gain from fighting other kings create even more. You'll even get chances to make peace or wage war on new kings to chase certain playstyles. Read more Build a kingdom and watch overpowered tiny armies fight in 9 KingsJun 6, 2025 - GamingOnLinux9 Kings is a fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder where you get to watch tiny armies fight and it's surprisingly absorbing of your time. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/build-a-kingdom-and-watch-overpowered-tiny-armies-fight-in-9-kings/ Patch #08: Big Optimizations (pt. 2), Flametower, Spire, FixesJun 5, 2025 - Community Announcements8th patch is live! Besides fixing issues you reported and some cool rebalancing decisions, we're implementing part two of our performance updates. This is a huge improvement to the late game, and, performance-wise, we expect all builds to be playable up to year 99 now.Steam Reviews: Your Feedback MattersWe've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. Join the 9 Kings CommunityPlease join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game!List of changes (0.7.69):Animation revamp (this should meaningfully improve performance on all systems)RAM usage is considerably enhancedImproved attack speed processing during late late game (if attack speed grows beyond the speed of a single frame, it is now converted into damage in the backend)Glass Staff's decree no longer caps statsOverwork now works with ShrinesFlametower now moves faster when it levels up!Trebuchet and Flametower now properly display stat increase when leveled up.Fixed Mycelium summoning speed (it's now faster - and actually 9 seconds - on normal speed)Warden perk is no longer re-triggered upon loadSpire now officially heals wallsFixed an issue that caused Mercenaries to slow the game downFixed a glitch that caused Boars to get "stuck" on their plots after a battleFixed a glitch that caused broken Concabulators to work again after loading a gameFixed a glitch that caused Dispenser to gain extra buffs every time you loaded the gameFixed a Lab Rat save data glitch on very high levels (those Rats love to break the game, don't they)Overhaul no longer "levels up" every time you load a runFixed a glitch that caused the game not to load properly when you quit in between game states.Got rid of the double Scapegoat glitch in the shop Fixed Expansion Tower pivot + other minor visual tweaksAfter downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. And this is it for today. Hopefully, the core gameplay will be stable now, and we can start focusing on new content. There's exciting new stuff coming very soon. Expect a roadmap post next week! Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #07: Big Optimizations (pt. 1), Critical hits, Saving, HotfixesMay 31, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsAlright, this is the most important patch yet. We're working hard to live up to the expectations you have on us. And we hope you and the 250k+ (!!!) people playing enjoyed the first week of 9 Kings. In this patch, we're fixing key issues you reported, starting to implement the first part of core performance tweaks, while also improving some core mechanics like the critical hits, late game damage processing, and the run saving system. Steam Reviews: Your Feedback MattersWe've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. List of changes (0.7.44): Gameplay/QOL: Critical hits now are displayed in a cool orange color & exclamation marks (have fun, marksmen) Fixed a Precision stacking glitch (sit back and watch things go POW POW POW POW) Reinforce now shows consolidated stack damage increase numbers Fixed some key data storage variables when loading runs Fixed a glitch when quitting a game right before a battle starts (it no longer loads thinking you're in battle) Perks and Decrees are now applied correctly after loading a game Buffed initial Palace attack speed (it's now 0.37/s, and it gets wild with level ups) Healing numbers are also hidden when "HIDE DAMAGE NUMBERS" option is toggled Shrine now levels up a single plot per year and its effect costs less gold per level Fixed an exploit that allowed you to re-use razed tiles (from Razing) with Earthworks or the Exploration decree (very nice catch, community) End screen stat numbers are now properly displayed after loading a run Fixed the apostrophe character in French Performance: Improved combat performance during late game for high attack speed builds Improved the way damage is computed per frame to mitigate overflow during battle Improved damage computing on Endless Mode (making it more viable to get to year 99) Improved level up processing mechanic (Rats should crash less now when you domino the hell out of them) Optimized Orchard performance Optimized Achievement detection performance Fixed small backend errors COMING NEXT: Animation system revamp (that will improve performance considerably) Improved attack speed processing during late late game. More balancing tweaks & fixes New content After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won’t have the updates stored and it may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at [email protected]. We previously posted this patch yesterday but rolled back due to a gamebreaking bug found with Trappers/Scapegoats. Sorry about that! This update brings very big changes, and your feedback is very important. There are 250k computers running 9 Kings out there, and as much as we try to foresee as many issues as possible, some gaps will only become clear with your input. Optimizing 9 Kings is an ongoing task, and your help is vital to us. That’s why we cho...Patch #06: Hot-fixes, Improved Calendar & Preparation for performance updateMay 28, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsThe patch #06 is a very straightforward one. In the next few days, we want to focus heavily on improving Endless Mode's performance, but we wanted to address other core issues you've been reporting before that. We also tweaked the initial order of game events after hearing your feedback. Steam Reviews: Your Feedback MattersWe've been reading through all of your Steam reviews and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. Here's the full list of changes (0.7.30): Hot-fixed a glitch that caused Converter to get INSANELY OP after the final boss. Prophet now appears one year earlier First Merchant now appears one year earlier First Diplomat now appears one year earlier Improved Splicing & Gentrify performance Concabulator now only levels up one level of every unit, as originally intended. The megalomaniac Lab Rat domino effect still works normally in all usual situations. Broken Cabulator is now a level 1 card (as originally intended) Made sure upgrade pop ups don't keep spamming, visually, forever (specially on Reinforce builds) Fixed a respawn issue that caused some Boars to not leave their plots. You can no longer keep playing on Stats screen after ending a run during a battle Added a safeguard for saved data after specific reported crashes. If you've had a data issue before this patch, the game will now load a backup file. Added a safeguard to mitigate an issue that sometimes made cards to appear before the expansion event was over. Fixed a visual glitch that caused you to see through a few pixels in some cards. After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and may cause conflicts. If you experienced data loss before this patch and for some reason our safeguard didn't fix it, please email us at [email protected] and we'll provide you with a new save file. We'll be on the lookout for any possible bugs, and we'll now focus on the performance side of the late game. Expect updates soon! Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #05: Base cards revamp, Cauldron tweaks, EXPLOSIONS & More FixesMay 27, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsTime for patch #05. In this one, we’re focusing on fixing the remaining core glitches, making major improvements to base card balancing, fixing some explosion mechanics, and giving our beautiful buff Golem King a little love. Performance patches are coming soon. Steam Reviews: Your Feedback MattersWe've been reading through all of your Steam reviews, crushing bugs, and we appreciate all the feedback we've been getting. We've reached over 2,000 Steam reviews, and we'd love to continue seeing more of your thoughts! It helps us know what to focus on for each upcoming patch. Here's the full list of changes (0.7.28): Increased level-up buffs of all base cards (let's make those castle builds viable!) Treant attacks now heal AND cause damage by default. Effect size decreased by 20%. Treant healing numbers is now displayed in green. Palace level ups now also increase its attack speed. Cauldron now properly works with ALL bases, towers, and summon buildings Increased Trapper damage Trappers now stay in the backline Increased Wall HP Gunpowder decree now works properly with all AoE units (we're recklessly making everything go boom, keep us posted on any performance issues) Improved explosion performance Congratulations screen once you beat King difficulty (there are more to go, but hey, you deserve it) New kings are now unlocked even if you don't finish your current run. Added safeguards to a rare bug that causes troops to stand still before battle (this ain't the time for peace) After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and may cause conflicts. Bear in mind, King unlock animations might be triggered again the first time you finish a run after the patch. We'll be on the lookout for any possible bugs, and we'll now focus on the performance side of the late game. Expect updates soon! Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #04: Quick Fixes, Stronger Spores & Rats, Crash SafeguardsMay 26, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsPatch #04 brings a handful of quick but important updates. Here's the full list of changes: Increased Sporeling (Mycelium's summon) damage Increased Lab Rat HP and damage End screen now shows you your difficulty (no more bragging on Peasant difficulty you guys) When using Earthworks on a level 3 Concabulator, you will now get two Concabulators and one Broken Cabulator. Added a save file guardrail to prevent meta data issues after crashes Fixed an occasional bug that caused cards to be displayed before the previous event was over (causing overlapping). Fixed a save issue that caused a new game to not start properly after a crash Localization improvements Font processing improvements Fixed a Chinese character glitch After downloading the patch, please make sure to start a new run, as previous runs won't have the updates saved and it might cause conflicts. If you had a crash issue that messed with new runs, please reinstall the game, the issue should be fixed for good after this patch. Keep in mind we're also actively working on the performance patch to improve endless mode and playthroughs with a high unit count. Once we address all the reports (we're close), we'll go all-in on making late late game smoother. More news soon! Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #03: Hotfixes, Balancing, Updated FontsMay 25, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsPatch #03 is a quick one: there were some issues we really wanted to fix asap and gladly we did! More patches are coming soon, with improved features and also addressing other reports you've given us. We read all of your feedback, thank you for taking the time to help us improve the game. - Ultragravity decree is now working properly - Increased Lab Rat damage - Fixed an issue that caused King of Blood saves to mess with future runs - Fixed Chinese font display issues - Improved all other language's fonts - Some graphic tweaks The first weekend of 9 Kings has been freaking awesome. We're about to hit 100k COPIES SOLD! If you wanna help us out, make sure to leave your Steam review, share your thoughts in the forums, and stick around. This is just the start! Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #02: Hotfixes, Performance, Balancing, TimerMay 24, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsHey, everyone! We've been super stoked about all the feedback we've been getting. Now, here comes a very important patch. Please keep your reviews coming, they're extremely helpful to us. We're working hard to fix all the unexpected bugs you've been reporting, and hopefully we'll address all of them in no time. We're also working hard to improve performance on late game and you can expect a dedicated performance patch soon. Thanks for all your support! Here's the list of updates in 0.7.21: *Please make sure to start a NEW run after updating so that the changes can take effect! New players now start with the first three difficulties unlocked A timer has been added to the pause screen Time scaling has been fixed (you can now properly beat So You Think You Can Speedrun) Fixed the main issue that caused high numbers to crash the game. Mycelium has been further rebalanced (it's even stronger, spawns a little slower) Rebalanced Lab Rat: it has fewer units but it's now MUCH stronger. Rat supremacy lives to fight another day. Ongoing Lab Rat performance improvements. Rebalanced Converter: spawn's base stats are now in line with Lab Rat stats. Improved Blessing plot display (for better visibility) Fixed an exploit that occasionally allowed you to "duplicate" a card if you placed it in between two plots (pretty fun one though, ngl) Fixed a bug that caused perks not to work on some specific situations (it should be gone for good, but please keep us posted on this one) Turned Splicing into a special decree (like Gambling, that can only be picked once) Fixed performance glitches (ongoing) Fixed a bug that caused the Trebuchet to stop shooting at very high attack speeds. Improved an occasional glitch with plot selection Localization improvements: We're currently investigating and working to fix problems with display of characters on certain systems, we have made some fixes and will keep working hard to resolve all issues as soon as possible! (对不起！另外也非常感谢玩家 Akelyds 花时间提供详细的反馈，帮我们一起排查这个问题。) And that's it for day 2. We're rebalancing the game in real time as we gather feedback. Please keep it coming and know this is a work in progress. As you know, some decisions will be made with performance in mind, but we can tweak what's not working at any time, so please let us know your thoughts and leave us a review. Expect a substantial performance patch for Endless Mode soon! Join us on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter Love, Sad Socket teamPatch #01: Hotfixes, Rebalancing, Quality of Life updatesMay 23, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsIt's day one of Early Access. As promised, we'll keep working day and night to improve 9 Kings! Please keep in mind that leaving a Steam review is incredibly helpful to us. We're reading all of them, working hard, and you can expect a lot of new stuff in the upcoming days! Here's the list of updates in 0.7.18: Scapegoat has been buffed (it now has more HP & gives you 3, 6, and 9 gold per death) Mercenary level-up has been buffed (higher HP & DMG boost) Mycelium was rebalanced: fewer will spawn, but they're now MUCH stronger. Fixed a bug that cause Splicing to over level-up Lab Rat builds Disabled excessive pop-up spam when loading a late-game save (Demon's Altar players, we see you) Fixed a glitch that caused shop prices to charge you more than intended Fixed a glitch that could trigger Blessing animations multiple times Fixed a glitch that caused trees to not be destroyed on expansion mode Data from "Populate" decree is now properly stored in your game save Fixed "Like Sardines" Achievement Performance improvements (ongoing) Localization fixes UPDATE: We just posted a hotfix to fix a critical bug that caused some save files to disappear after a game crash. This should be fixed now! Please keep us posted, we promise to not leave you hanging. We're stoked about all the love and feedback we've been getting. And know that this is a work in progress. Please continue to share your thoughts in a Steam review! We read through everything! Join us on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter Love, Sad Socket team9 Kings Is Available Now in Early Access!May 23, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsThe big day is here! And with no further ado: you can now play 9 Kings Early Access with a 35% launch discount! Right down below, you can check out our brand new release day trailer and a list of what's included in today's launch. Steam reviews: your thoughts matter We read ALL Steam reviews. If you've been playing 9 Kings and feel like sharing your experience, Steam reviews are especially helpful right now. They don't need to be long or detailed. A few words about what's working, what's bumpy, or what stood out is more than enough. Your feedback is always helpful in shaping future updates. As we start the EA journey together, here's what you can expect: Huge content update In EA, you'll experience a full game revamp, including: 7 out of 9 playable kings Meta-progression Special cards Dozens of new decrees New difficulty levels Improved Endless Mode New events Dozens of community-requested improvements And that's just the start Constant patches You can expect new content updates constantly. We'll be adding new cards, decrees, new game modes, and kings in the following months as we progress toward 1.0. We can't wait to build the ultimate version of 9 Kings with you! 24/7 bug fixing We decided to release the game in EA so that we could build it together. Your help is huge for an indie team like ours. So please bear in mind that some issues still might happen. We're on the lookout, and we'll work day and night to fix all of them. Every week, 9 Kings will get more fun, more polished, and more powerful! We can't wait to see you play 9 Kings. Starting... NOW! Join the 9 Kings CommunityAlso make sure to come join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/9 Kings Releases into EA on May 23rd!May 8, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsWe're getting close, everyone! You've been patient and kind. Now, we're only a few weeks away, and we really want to share with you what to expect from the EA release of 9 Kings. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/088464e537f6581bb09b92fced39079b522cde2c.png New kingsPlay as the King of Stone! Play as the King Of Nature! Play as the King of Progress! Seven out of the nine main kings in the game will be available at launch. Each has a unique archetype and adds a completely new layer to the entire game. What do they do, you ask? You'll find out very, very soon. Meta-progressionPerks are available at last. And you can now make your kingdom's glory be remembered for generations! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/50c2080abfd771ae2333d35f774c854418c417f2.png All difficulty levelsExperience the pure 9 Kings design by trying to beat the core game in all the full-game difficulties! Endless mode is fun, but we find this to be even more fun. Be strategic, smart, and lucky: We can't wait to see the highest difficulty the community can reach. Longer core gameBy the way, the great war now lasts 33 years! This will drastically change the strategies you will need to employ to beat each run. Special cardsThe Merchant might hold some surprises for you. And they're kinda crazy. Like, game-breaking crazy. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/817aacb29c197aa5aa482931c3d879ee7702dadc.png Blessing eventsEvery run now has a mini side-quest that will grant you bonuses! Fulfill the prophecy with your kingdom-building skills during your run, and you shall be rewarded. The blessing system is here to make your runs even more dynamic, unique and strategic. Twice as many decreesThat's right. We hope you'll find hundreds of new ways to break the game and make us go nuts. Community InputYou can finally save/load your current run, attack buildings now get buffs from other buildings, bosses have HP bars, perks were improved, cards were buffed, UI info was improved. All thanks to your inputs. Please keep your notes coming. QoL and performance improvements are ongoing tasks in 9 Kings, and the reason we're releasing an EA version is YOU and your inputs. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/9cf0a285b588c4bbc6a70bafc57a4b580191d2b6.png Release on May 23rdWe know—the store said May 19th. And we’re really sorry for the minor delay! Due to some logistical issues, we had to push things back a few days. But the good news is: ultimately, we’re doing this so we can deliver everything listed above, which is much more than originally planned. We truly want you to have as much content as possible and hope you understand—we’ll keep working hard not to let you down! Ongoing, unconditional supportWe'll be working day and night on 9 Kings upon release. Expect constant improvements and big content patches very frequently as we progress towards 1.0. We can't wait for you to get your hands on the game. Thanks for sticking around and for all the support. It means the world to us. See you on May 23rd! Love, Sad Socket team 9 Kings partners up with Hooded Horse!Apr 17, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsIt's been a wild ride. And thanks to you, 9 Kings has become bigger than we could've ever imagined. We couldn't be happier about where we're headed, but as we grow, we've been needing more and more help. So today, we're bringing in the cavalry. Hooded Horse is now the global publisher of 9 Kings! If you know Hooded Horse, then you probably know why we're stoked. If you don't, let's just say they're one of the coolest indie publishers in the world with some of the titles we admire most in the industry. We're thrilled to now be a part of their roster. With their help, alongside INSTINCT3 in Germany, we're sure we're gonna make the best version of 9 Kings possible. What does that mean for you? This means 9 Kings will now have two of the things we need most: TIME and REACH. Some of you might be curious, so let's break it down. With their resources, we'll be able to: Localize the game into more languages Have a more thorough QA pipeline Reach a wider audience Bring the game to more platforms (TBA) Have more time to actually develop the game!!! Give our community the attention it deserves (on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter) And much more we can't share just yet Join our new Discord and Subreddit! As Hooded Horse's first royal decree, 9 Kings now has its own Discord server and Subreddit! You can finally engage with the community anywhere you like. They will be handling moderation, but we'll jump in every now and then to say hi (and obviously read all the feedback). Official EA release date: May 19th We know, the store said April. But so much happened this month, and we want to make sure that we deliver the best EA launch possible. We hope you understand! There's still a long way to go during EA, but we're confident that by May 19th we'll have a very fun 9 Kings experience for you. Stay tuned: next week we'll be sharing what you can expect from the EA release! Shout out to everyone involved in making this happen. We can't wait for May 19th. Love, Sad Socket team https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/[PATCH NOTE] 9 Kings 384Apr 8, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsSurprise super-cool flash patch COMING TOMORROW: - Improved projectile performance drastically - Troops now take over a wider battlefield space! (improving visibility and unit behavior) - Buffed Demon's Altar FOR REAL now. - Endless progression is yet a biiit milder - Cemetery now shows the damage caused by its imps. - Fixed a rare bug where troops would stop attacking unexpectedly (no more coward warriors!) - Improved Scout Tower stat calculations - Fixed Thief teleporting performance issue - Projectiles no longer randomly stay on the ground - Minor localization fixes TEMPORARY NOTE: we identified a gamebreaking bug that caused some units to not attack on certain occasions. We are rolling-back to the previous stable patch and will bring this patch back tomorrow. We really hate doing this, but we hope you understand we're sprinting to drastically revamp Endless Mode performance before EA, and sometimes these moves mess with some core (otherwise stable) parts of the game. We're focused on very aggressive measures to improve performance, and with it, there are some risks. Bear in mind that we're taking those risks now so we won't have to during EA. New patch is coming soon. Please hang in there! Love, Sad Socket team[PATCH NOTE] 9 Kings 382Apr 7, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsThis one is a smaller patch with balancing and performance tweaks. We'll keep listening closely to your inputs in the forums! - Demon's Altar was buffed - Endless Mode progression is now milder (fibonacci multiplier now has 1/2 its intensity) - Improved performance to prevent occasional game freezing after card placement. - Fixed a bug that caused the game to lag heavily in Chinese due to a font issue (对不起!) - Overall performance improved - Minor localization/text tweaks Please share your experience on Endless Mode with us after this update. As we mentioned in the forums, we're looking for a sweet spot here. A run can't last forever, but we want it to last for as long as it is fun. We'll share the official EA release date with you soon. But we're working hard to make sure the launch is as polished as it deserves to be, no stones left unturned. Hope y'all understand. We can't wait to share more news with you! Love, Sad Socket team[PATCH NOTE] 9 Kings 377Mar 27, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsHey, everyone. We’re finally heading toward a demo version with a stable Endless Mode. There’s always room for improvement, but our focus is now shifting toward the Early Access release that’s just around the corner (make sure to wishlist 🙏). We can’t wait! Anyway, massive performance improvements were necessary for this one. And here’s what’s new: • Heavily improved memory usage. • 9 Kings went on a diet and now weighs less than half its original size in MBs! • Improved Endless scaling: early years are even easier, final years are much harder. • Increased max enemy count (did I mention the final years are harder?) • The two points above mean the "canon gamebreaking year" has increased drastically. • Balancing: leveling up a troop will give you the same amount of extra units as the first card (i.e you will get 9 soldiers per level instead of 9-3-3) • Fixed the recurring bug that caused the game to soft lock during late game (this was a hard one, and the reason this patch took this long - please keep us posted!) • Fixed a glitch that caused towers’ attack speed stat to underperform. • Fixed a bug that caused Mangler to not be properly affected by DMG upgrades. • Russian is now available. • The game no longer slows down when you have no units (it's now a menu option!). • You can now disable blood particles (this is a family friendly kingdom!) • Improved card descriptions. • Improved fonts We really hope the game runs smoother than ever on everyone’s computers. But please share your experience with us! Since this update drastically changes the way data is handled, we’ll be on the lookout for possible hot-fixes immediately. Love, Sad Socket team9 Kings is the #01 Strategy Demo on Steam Next Fest!Mar 14, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsOk, we'll say it again: Thanks to YOU we were the most played strategy game on Next Fest. As of today, our demo was played by +200k unique players with Overwhelmingly Positive reception. Not to mention some very cool press pieces. Here's our favorite from gamesradar+. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/e56851db48063fd1bd7e243ef1ac4a109ea6dc9b.png We also had a lot of fun watching the hundreds of videos from all over the world that came out of it (keep 'em coming!!!) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/4f4afab81983bc93819ccef3094fda85e5216edd.png Seriously, we couldn't thank you enough for all the love and support. We're not a big studio. We've got no publicist. The person writing this note is actually writing it in between beta test sessions. We're a passionate indie team and your support means everything. Thanks for joining us on this journey. We promise to keep working hard. We've improved the game so much this week with your help and that's just the start. We'll make it clean, we'll make it fast, we'll fix all the bugs. And most of all: we'll make 9 Kings as freaking FUN as we've always dreamed. Expect more news very soon. We hope you stick around! Love, Sad Socket team https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/ {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/7af9b198256823840a29ffba2934a55fa6df9fe6.pngIn celebration of your WILDEST builds (#01)Mar 8, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsLast month we asked you to send us your CRAZIEST 9 Kings builds and we got a whopping 500+ screenshots so far. So we thought it was time to celebrate some of the ones that blew our minds! 6. The Greedy Greed Greediness by Trakinas {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/a0862d6badf0628273b60abf346e7d38b3c8c074.jpg How many banks are enough, Trakinas? 5. Endless Soldiers on Endless Mode by Prehn0r {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/3f8474365ce9a0c1153e83a3a7a242ed1ddcf7a1.jpg I mean, at least we think these are soldiers... 4. Greed of Nothing by Knolle {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/20e3fee1ea9d18087986ba08628ccb45ae450177.png It looks like every king can get greedy, after all. 3. One million mercenaries by 千里云帆 {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/f1911377f81c457e2ebcc2f1f7cb93e9e0bc3c9e.jpg We're sorry your game crashed here, 千里云帆, but we'll immortalize this beautiful empire in this post (ps. Save Mode will be available on EA). 2. Cards!!!!!!!!! by Hitagi {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/bcb887c09d09c1bb2b2a03612152a917b1ed7ce5.jpg Hope you've got a very long sleeve to fit all these. 1. It's Lonely at the Top by Serenity {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44897639/40ff3c819136a6abcd2a4390065dc8becd88cd33.png Over one-thousand-freaking-years. This will never not blow our minds. Also, deleting everything else and just leaving the most powerful elves in the face of the earth alone in the desert was a very classy move. Shoutout to everyone who's been sharing their gameplays with us. Keep 'em coming, you might be featured in the next post! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3122250/9_Kings_Demo/ Love, Sad Socket team Demo 361 - Patch NotesMar 6, 2025 - Community AnnouncementsAnother chunky patch! Hope you guys like the surprises we've got for ya :) ABRAKABADRA: new decree that turns enemies into FROGS! Increased max number of enemy troops Battle cry on final battle! *Yeaaaaaaaaargh* Anticipated Expansion year to improve player's strategizing capabilities. Offering card was updated! You now have one more card to delete plots (and get a cool bonus out of it) Exploration decree is now stronger! Optimized explosion FXs drastically improving end game performance. Optimized Shaman AI, improving game performance. French language is now available (santé!) Endless mode difficulty curve is less steep in the early years. Endless mode difficulty curve should be harder in later years. New Baron mode: try your skills in a higher difficulty! Boss battles are now more challenging Units killed by the Mangler will now also make Demon's Altar stronger. Several new UI indicators and tooltips added. Hovering over card types now tell you what card type they are. Now you can make sure you know what is a tower and what is a summoning building! Improved UI during battle. Adding Enchantments to plots will now trigger a correspondent text FX Cemetery plots now shows its summoned Skeletons stats. Boar and Shaman plots now tell you their buff effects. Added a delay in the Merchant event to prevent misclicking. Made sure that when your castle is at its max level, Castle cards stop appearing in the game. Fixed a very weird Unity glitch that cause the game to not properly shut down on some computers. Let us know how the Endless Mode is feeling for you! We're still balancing it out and would love to hear your experiences. And oh! If you haven't yet, don't forget to wishlist the full game. It really helps! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2784470/9_Kings/ Love, Sad Socket team
Show Comments
