Image: Sad Socket, Hooded Horse & Sidekick Publishing

Another big early access graduation yesterday was Sad Socket's hugely popular card-based strategy roguelike, 9 Kings - a fast-paced game about building armies of thousands of units and winning your campaign in half an hour or less. It has been a huge hit for ubiquitous strategy publisher Hooded Horse, and while it has taken a while to get here, the game now has all nine promised monarchs to beat up (or play as), as well as a bunch of new stuff for launch day.

The core of 9 Kings is very simple. You start out with a 3x3 grid kingdom. One square needs to hold your castle. The others you can fill with troops or utility items, played from a deck of cards you slowly build up. Mostly your own faction's, but you earn extra cards as you beat up enemies from your neighbors. Once you've reduced your hand down to just two cards, the turn is over, and a battle plays out. Win, and you get rewards. Lose, and you lose a life - three lives down, and it's game over. Every now and then you can add an extra square to your kingdom, but those are infrequent rewards.

And thus begins a game of strategic synergies. I found surprising success early on by having swarms of thieves with poisoned weapons and resistance to the first hit they take, mounted on boars. They practically teleport behind the enemy ranks and demolish archers, letting my heavier paladins tank bigger threats up front.

But there are nine factions to play with (including one that's all about temporal shenanigans and long-haul survival), so I'm sure to learn a lot more as I play deeper. It's moreish stuff, and runs are short and snappy (especially with time acceleration), so taking one more shot at the crown is very tempting.

The launch version includes four modes. The basic single-player mode. Multiplayer mode, where you asynchronously fight against other players' winning builds. Quest mode, where you complete puzzle-like challenges based around the nine kings (including random bonus stuff after finishing the 80 basic missions), and Joker mode, where you get to create your own custom rulesets.

The big launch-day feature is Joker mode, unlocked once you've got all nine kings playable, providing a huge page of customizable options to make your own custom difficulty for either the most casual of runs or some unhinged nigh-impossible challenge because you've got something to prove. There's plenty more little additions, but you'll have to read the full patch notes for yourself here. Many little goodies coming to the table.

While the base price of the game has gone up a little, hitting v1.0 brings big discounts too. 9 Kings is available for £18/$20, but is 50% off until November 26th, and is cheaper still if you've got Against The Storm and Super Fantasy Kingdom, another pair of roguelike kingdom-builders from the same publisher.