The King is Watching Cheats – How to Edit Your Save File for Infinite Resources

by Nitemare / Articles, Misc. Guides / 01 Jul 2025

Ruling a kingdom in The King is Watching is backbreaking labor. You’ve put in the hours. You’ve glared at your wheat fields until they produced to your liking, scowled at your mines until they vomited out silver, and stared down the barracks to pound out giant knights. But it’s hard. And you just know that the instant you turn your back, your farmers are leaving their scythes behind for a card game out by the silo.

The roguelite loop is fun, sure, but every once in a while, a monarch wishes they could just cut to the chase. If you’re willing to trade that high-minded, painstaking grind for an obscene amount of cash, we’ve got a dirty little secret to share with you. Here’s how to pop your save file open and make yourself fabulously rich.

Hold Up: A Word of Warning

All right, before you begin, let’s be serious for a second. You’re about to perform text-editor surgery on your game, and this is no joke. One misplaced character or one trigger-happy finger, and you could blow your whole kingdom to kingdom come in a puff of mangled data. So, in the interest of all that is good, back up your save file first. Don’t be a martyr. Just do it.

Step 1: Find Your Save File

First, spelunk into the depths of your PC. The file you’re after is lurking in this folder:

\AppData\Local\The_king_is_watching_steam\Release

Need a pro-gamer shortcut? Press the Win Key + R; type %localappdata% in the field that appears and press Enter. Then find the folder named The_king_is_watching_steam and open the Release folder within.

Step 2: Back It Up (Seriously)

You should find a file named savedata.dat. That’s it… your entire reign contained in one file. Right-click it, select Copy, and paste it somewhere safe, like your desktop. Rename the copy to savedata_backup.dat or whatever you’ll remember. This is your get-out-of-jail-free card in case things go wrong.

Step 3: Open the Save File

Now right-click the original savedata.dat & open it with Notepad.

Step 4: Find the Good Stuff

Press CTRL + F to open the search bar and type in: meta_resources

Your text editor will jump to a line that looks something like this:

“meta_resources”:50.0,

Behold, your miserable little pile of resources. Now let’s make it fit for a king. Replace the number with something more substantial. We prefer 999999.0 ourselves. Well done, you’ve worked for it… and whatever you do, don’t remove the .0 at the end!! It might sound daft but it’s crucial for the game to read the number correctly.

Step 5: Save and Reign

Slam CTRL + S to save your work and close Notepad. Now boot up The King is Watching and behold your magnificent ill-begotten booty. Your coffers will be brimming over. Go wild. Open all the permanent upgrades, max out every path, and become the undisputed monarch you were born to be. Just… try to look surprised when you “earn” your next upgrade. The peasants are watching, after all.

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Nitemare

I am a gamer by day and by night. I started out writing game reviews for small online forums as a hobby way back in 2005. Since then, I have grown my knowledge for writing and gaming to continue my journey into something more.

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