9 Kings News

Patch #09: New cards! New achievements! Quick restart!

[p]Patch #09... had to be a cool update right? Brace yourselves for some new content, folks.[/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We'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. [/p][p][/p][p]List of changes (0.7.81): [/p][p][/p][p]NEW CONTENT: [/p]

[p]14 new achievements are now available. [/p]
[p]A cool achievement screen is now in-game (track your progress, admire your shiny gold medals)[/p]
[p]New card: Gigantify (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
[p]New card: Echoform (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
[p]New card: Haste (Rainbow Tome)[/p]
[p]New card: Temple (Rainbow Building)[/p]
[p]New card: Ogre (Rainbow Troop)[/p]
[p]Added a credits screen (there's a lot of people we needed to thank) [/p]

[p]QoL:[/p]

[p]Added a quick restart button (you asked, you got it)[/p]
[p]Added more volume levels for audio customization[/p]
[p]Navigation issues during Perk selection on computers with peripherals should no longer occur[/p]
[p]Smoother intro transitions [/p]
[p]Faster transitions (Prophet screen, Stat screen)[/p]
[p]Skippable Prophet text[/p]
[p]UI visual tweaks[/p]
[p]UI is becoming keyboard/controller friendly (WIP)[/p]

[p]Fixes/Balancing:[/p]

[p]Fixed a localization issue that caused severe lag in some systems (sorry!)[/p]
[p]Spores from Mycelium now properly inherit buffs from Blacksmiths and Beacons[/p]
[p]Flametower is now properly getting movement speed boosts[/p]
[p]Earthworking a level 3 Concabulator will give you 2 Concabulators and 1 Broken Cabulator again[/p]
[p]Trappers now gain a bit of attack speed when leveling up[/p]
[p]Fixed a conflict caused by ending a run during an animation[/p]
[p]Re-enchant now properly works with all enchantments.[/p]
[p]Improved Executioner targeting system[/p]
[p]Fixed visual display of ranged projectiles (they would randomly be invisible)[/p]
[p]Damage pop ups now always display actual damage output of melee troops[/p]
[p]Fixed a glitch that charged 30 gold whenever using Explore/Earthworks during Endless Mode [/p]
[p]HOTFIXED: The Dispenser now processes attack speed properly again[/p][p] [/p]

[p]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![/p][p][/p][p]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! [/p][p][/p][p]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 team[/p]

9 Kings and other useful games

I'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.

Build a kingdom and watch overpowered tiny armies fight in 9 Kings

9 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, Fixes

[p]8th 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.[/p][p][/p][h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3][p]We'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. [/p][p][/p][h3]Join the 9 Kings Community[/h3][p]Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game![/p][p][/p][p]List of changes (0.7.69):[/p]

[p]Animation revamp (this should meaningfully improve performance on all systems)[/p]
[p]RAM usage is considerably enhanced[/p]
[p]Improved 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)[/p]
[p]Glass Staff's decree no longer caps stats[/p]
[p]Overwork now works with Shrines[/p]
[p]Flametower now moves faster when it levels up![/p]
[p]Trebuchet and Flametower now properly display stat increase when leveled up.[/p]
[p]Fixed Mycelium summoning speed (it's now faster - and actually 9 seconds - on normal speed)[/p]
[p]Warden perk is no longer re-triggered upon load[/p]
[p]Spire now officially heals walls[/p]
[p]Fixed an issue that caused Mercenaries to slow the game down[/p]
[p]Fixed a glitch that caused Boars to get "stuck" on their plots after a battle[/p]
[p]Fixed a glitch that caused broken Concabulators to work again after loading a game[/p]
[p]Fixed a glitch that caused Dispenser to gain extra buffs every time you loaded the game[/p]
[p]Fixed a Lab Rat save data glitch on very high levels (those Rats love to break the game, don't they)[/p]
[p]Overhaul no longer "levels up" every time you load a run[/p]
[p]Fixed a glitch that caused the game not to load properly when you quit in between game states.[/p]
[p]Got rid of the double Scapegoat glitch in the shop [/p]
[p]Fixed Expansion Tower pivot + other minor visual tweaks[/p]

[p]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].

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 team[/p]

Patch #07: Big Optimizations (pt. 1), Critical hits, Saving, Hotfixes

Alright, 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.

[h3]Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters[/h3]We'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 chose to release the game in EA. We hope you understand and keep helping us build the best game we can.

You can also expect more performance patches and new content very soon!

Love,
Sad Socket team