Nothing in this batch costs more than $2.99, and the two Amanita Design adventures sit at $1.99 each. Around them: a muddy truck sim, a demolition derby, a solo-developer RPG, and a card game that hasn't changed in years.
A solo developer's open world
Nimian Legends: Vandgels
An open-world fantasy RPG with a story mode, ten mini-dungeons, and a mode for wandering with no fights at all.
$1.99
The developer says Vandgels is four times the size of the earlier BrightRidge. The story sends ambassadors of Faith, Fortune, and Force to a snowbound citadel to settle the fate of their nation, and the Dungeonette mode hides one ability in each of ten mini-dungeons. A photo mode with Spirit View tracks animals by their habits, and you can change the weather, the time of day, or switch to a watercolor look. It plays offline, but the last update landed in April 2023, so expect it to stay as it is. One person built all of it, as the listing says up front:
As a passionate solo indie developer, I've poured my heart into crafting this game.
Trucks, mud, and a compass
MudRunner Mobile
An off-road driving sim: heavy trucks, Siberian mud and rivers, and only a map and compass to find the route.
$2.99
MudRunner Mobile is the series' first trip to phones, and it plays slow on purpose. Deliveries cross terrain that reacts to the weight of each truck, so a river crossing or a swamp is a planning problem as much as a driving one. There are 15 maps, six sandbox and nine challenge, and 16 vehicles from light scouts to military haulers, each with its own equipment. It's a 962 MB download, needs iOS 15.6 or later, and was updated as recently as March 2026. iPhoners who like a slow, stubborn job more than lap times are the audience.
The demolition derby, again
Wreckfest
Demolition derby and banger racing, where armor keeps you alive but slows the car down.
$2.99 $9.99
Wreckfest sits at the same price it had in the eight paid iPhone games roundup in September, so this is a long sale rather than a fresh cut. The game is the same: bolt on bumpers, roll cages, and side protectors to survive a derby, and pay for each plate in handling. Banger races run through intersections and oncoming traffic, challenge modes swap the cars for lawn mowers and school buses, and a career mode ties it all together, with local multiplayer for wrecking friends.
Cards that grow mid-match
Mystic Vale
The digital version of a tabletop deck-builder, where you upgrade the cards you already hold instead of adding more.
$0.99
Mystic Vale's card-crafting is the hook: each card takes advancements as the match goes on, so the deck you finish with is not the deck you started with. You can play friends online or practice against the computer. It's the cheapest game here by a dollar, and the oldest build: the last update dates to April 2020, and it asks for nothing newer than iOS 10, which is worth knowing before you count on it for years.
A nightmare full of smiley faces
Happy Game :)
A psychedelic horror adventure: three nightmares to escape, with smiley faces and pink bunnies that are not on your side.
$1.99
Happy Game comes from Amanita Design, the studio behind Botanicula and CHUCHEL, and it turns that studio's soft, cute art style toward horror. The listing promises deeply disturbing puzzles in environments that are only half charming, and the creepy songs and screeches come from the Czech band DVA. The premise fits in two lines:
A little boy falls asleep to a horrible nightmare. Can you make him happy again?
A space gnome and a magic flute
Samorost 3
An exploration and puzzle adventure across nine alien worlds, and the loose continuation of the first two Samorost games.
$1.99
A curious space gnome uses a magic flute to travel the cosmos in search of where it came from, and each of the nine worlds has its own creatures, surprises, and puzzles to work out. Amanita Design calls it its most ambitious game, it's a 1.3 GB download, and the developer has one request:
We recommend playing with headphones for a greater experience!
For me it's the pick of the batch: the most complete adventure of the six, at the same price as Happy Game.
All six prices were verified in the US App Store at publish time; any of them can snap back without notice.
