Bills Must Be Paid, the piggy-bank-smashing incremental game that became one of the summer's surprise indie hits on Steam, is coming to phones and tablets. Rike Games has set a November 1 release for iOS, iPadOS and Android, and the App Store listing is already up for pre-order at a one-time price of $5.99, with the game marked as premium rather than free-to-play.
From a demo to 100,000 copies in three days
Rike Games is a two-person studio, Roxy and Mike, and Bills Must Be Paid is its first premium release. The game launched on PC and Mac through Steam on July 29, 2026, at $6.99 with a launch discount, after a demo that pulled in tens of thousands of wishlists over the spring. The studio's own pre-launch update counted more than 40,000 wishlists a week before release.
What happened next took the developers by surprise. Three days after launch, Rike Games posted that the game had sold more than 100,000 copies in under 72 hours, a big number for a small, cheap incremental game with no publisher behind it. The mobile version, announced this week, is the natural next step for a game that was always built around short, repeatable runs.
What you actually do
The premise fits in one line: you are broke, the bills keep coming, and the only money you have is locked up in a table full of piggy banks. Each run, you take a hammer to them. Every swing costs stamina, and when your hand gives out, the run ends and you count what you made.
The piggy banks are not all the same. Some flee when you get close, some barely move, and some are stuffed with far more cash than the rest. They also drop random loot, so part of each run is deciding which pig is worth the stamina. Rare coins are collectible too, giving completionists something to hunt for alongside the main loop.
Bankruptcy is part of the plan
The bills are where the pressure comes from. They arrive with a due date, and you choose when to pay them. Paying a bill unlocks perks that make the next one easier to clear. Ignore one for too long and you go bankrupt.
Bankruptcy is not a simple game over, though. Everything you paid toward your bills earns legacy points, and those buy rings and bracelets that permanently upgrade the hand holding the hammer. It is the familiar prestige loop of the incremental genre: lose everything, come back stronger, and push a little further into the bill pile next time.
Hammers, perks and a sprawling skill tree
Between runs, cash goes into a skill tree with several branches. Rike Games describes upgrades for grip strength, caffeine, gym sessions, wrist power and luck, along with unlockable abilities such as a rock rain and an electrified hammer. Hammers come in different types too: some trade a smaller impact radius for higher critical-hit chances, while others swing fast across a wide area for less damage.
Runs also offer pick-one perk choices, adding a little roguelite flavour to each attempt. One perk might freeze every piggy bank for a few seconds, while another refunds stamina on every smash or pays interest on your savings.
Built for the post-launch fixes
The mobile release arrives after a round of post-launch work on PC. Patch 1.1 in August added three save slots, so starting a new game no longer wipes your progress. It also changed the Double or Nothing coin flip so you can choose which side the coin starts on, after players argued about whether the flip was fair. The same patch fixed a launch crash on some Windows setups and sorted out Steam Cloud syncing between PC and Mac.
Price and platforms
Bills Must Be Paid launches on November 1 on iPhone and iPad through the App Store and on Android through Google Play. The App Store listing shows a one-time price of $5.99, a 4+ age rating and support for game controllers, and lets you pre-order now. That puts it a dollar under the PC version's $6.99 full price. The Steam version remains available for PC and Mac.
For a game designed around quick, one-more-go runs, phones may turn out to be its most natural home yet.
