9 Kings

So cool

A clever and quick run based card auto-battler roguelite. That's a word salad of key terms, but just as they cut to the quick of the game, so too does the game cut to the quick. Runs are fast, frenetic, but not really frantic. You spend a quick turn between battles playing some of your cards to build out your kingdom, and army, then you hit a button and watch your kingdom go to war. Much like doodling a stickman battle on a piece of paper, you're creating a faceless host to (hopefully) crush the enemy army. Rinse and repeat. Even a winning run can be finished in a half an hour, and the loop is so satisfying that I find myself taking every run to its logical conclusion, even when I know turns ahead that I've lost. It's just fun to watch the little pixel units smoosh together and die while the whole pixel unit animates like a paper cutout you'd hold while showing your nieces the two pieces of paper are having a fight. Even the noises they make are a bit crude and like the silly little grunts you'd make to accompany the skit. Like a kid mashing toys into one another in a simulacrum of a fight, you'll send your untis to die with about the same level of pathos. It's great. While not funny, or even whimsical, there isn't a dire feeling to the death of hundreds in each round. You'll build up little pixel armies and send them off vaguely in the direction of the enemy army to kill or be killed. You're the boss, the king, the czar. You don't have a lot of effect on the battle once a round is joined, but you have enough to do to stay focused not just on the results, but planting your battle ability where it's needed. You can speed the battles up greatly, if you want, but in 24 hours I've never felt the need. I want to watch the entirety of it play out, and I never know when I might start seeing the first hints of my army slowing, or that certain units are dying a little faster than before (mine, not theirs) and so I need to adapt. You pay attention because it's fun, but also because the game isn't going to hand a huge summary to you at the end of each battle to peruse, you need to pay attention to what's happening, where, and roughly the why of it. It's a fun way to spend twenty minutes, and I'm always tempted to launch into another war, for a "just one more turn" fix as I tweak my metagame perks for a particular ruler. Or I've got an inkling of how another ruler might have handled a matchup I've just lost, differently, or how I might be able to metagame an entirely new build based on an odd matchup I've witnessed. Like growing velociraptors into godzilla sized creatures, or adding archers next to my cemetery so that as they die I get a slow trickle of skeletons raised to string the enemy out more. The rulers and their kingdoms are all so profoundly different that strategies can be completely different when facing them, or playing them, but even with a non-'sweaty' approach to playing, you'll quickly come to know most units by the look of the few pixels that compose them as there is a decent variety of units, but there is not a glut. There are enough units that there is variety, but you won't be left scratching your head about what you just faced, so long as you're trying out each ruler in turn to learn them. I've played casually for 24 hours now, and I have a grasp of the game. It's not a title you'll be playing for days on end, but one you'll keep installed and come back to every few days or weeks. It works well as a bite sized experience when you don't have much time and you need to focus on having your fun between getting on with life, but you could also spend an afternoon theory crafting and banging out some achievements and honing your builds and strategies if you were so inclined.