The hottest city builder in Steam Next Fest is actually a roguelike deck builder in disguise: "Break the game with thousands of insane builds"

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9 Kings is my kind of genre soup, and people really like it so far

9 Kings armies at war in a green field
(Image credit: Sad Socket)

This Steam Next Fest has yielded a bumper crop of kingdom-style city builders. The King is Watching caught my eye initially, and now 9 Kings has emerged as the top-ranking city builder of the event. The thing is, 9 Kings is as much a roguelike deckbuilder as it is a kingdom builder, as developer Sad Socket explains.

The demo for 9 Kings has seemingly been around for a bit, but the updated one is featured in Next Fest and most of its "very positive" reviews were posted recently. The game is billed as a mix of grid-based building where you turn "your city into the most powerful of all kingdoms," and card-based strategy where you craft a deck of perks, actions, units, items, and upgrades. It's all rendered in lovely pixel art and seems like the kind of hard-to-put-down snack game that could quietly devour an evening.

The grid is deceptively small: just 9 tiles to begin with, but with room to expand. Aggressive cards might destroy a plot of land to buff the adjacent ones, or cause a soldier defending your kingdom to explode on death and damage would-be invaders. Your deck reflects your chosen king, which are almost like classes, and difficulty settings spice things up further. Other cards may replenish a platoon, unlock a new unit like a sniper, or deploy defensive buildings. It feels like a mix of politics, infrastructure, and war – anything goes as you compete with other kings.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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