The basic gameplay loop
Bills Must Be Paid is an active incremental game about turning a limited amount of stamina into enough money to handle incoming bills. You use a hammer to smash piggy banks, collect their rewards, and decide how much money to keep for bills versus how much to invest in your run.
For a first run, focus on four connected decisions:
- Smash piggy banks to earn money.
- Watch your stamina because every action has a cost.
- Keep enough money available for the next bill.
- Buy upgrades that solve the problem currently limiting your run.
Spend for the problem you have
An upgrade is useful only when it improves the part of the loop that is slowing you down. If piggy banks remain on the desk, more damage or an appropriate hammer improvement may help. If you run out of stamina while useful targets remain, stamina efficiency matters more. If you cannot cover the next bill, protect your cash instead of buying another temporary upgrade.
The safest beginner habit is to check the next bill before every purchase. This keeps an upgrade from ending an otherwise stable run.
Full release and Demo information
The full game is sold on Steam for Windows and macOS. Rike Games also provides an official browser Demo, but it should not be treated as the complete Steam version. Demo saves do not carry into the full release, and progression details can differ.
This wiki marks Demo-only information explicitly so that advice for one version is not presented as fact for another.
What to learn next
After understanding the basic loop, the most useful subjects are upgrades and the skill tree, hammer differences, piggy types, and the full release’s long-term progression systems. Those topics should be checked against official material and the current build before exact values are published.