ROTGRADE vs Rust Mule
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ROTGRADE
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Drive until the fuel runs out. Everything in the way is already dead. ROTGRADE is a hill-climb driving game with a body count. One road, one tank, and broken ground between you and the next fuel drum. Hold the throttle and the nose comes up. Lift over a crest and you land flat. Get it wrong and you finish the run on your roof. SIX MAPS, NOT SIX SKINS Roadside is where you learn the car. Mountain Pass climbs the steepest ground in the game. Dust Bowl is flat and bleached until the floor drops out from under you. City Limits is the flattest road and the busiest. Industrial has the longest launches. Night Run is the city after dark, where your headlights are the only warning you get. Each one opens up as your best distance grows. THE CROWD IS WORTH SOMETHING Not every body scores the same. Civilians are soft and everywhere. Roadworkers, punks and bikers are worth more. The ones in helmets and body armour are worth steering for, and there is one out there worth three of anybody else. Chain them together and the multiplier climbs with you. SIX VEHICLES Start in the Ute. Work up through the Dune Buggy, the Family Sedan, the Muscle, the Hot Rod and the Camper. Light cars spin up easily and land badly. Heavy ones plant themselves and shrug off a bad landing, but they take their time coming round in the air. UPGRADE WHAT MATTERS Engine for speed off the crest. Suspension for the landings. Fuel for the distance. Torque for the rotation that gets your nose up and your wheels back underneath you. No timers. No lives. No waiting to play. Just the road, the fuel gauge, and however far you can get before it runs dry.
Rust Mule
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No ads. No account. The dead have the highway, and you have a rusty pickup, a tank of fuel and one road to the evac point. Rust Mule is a 2D physics driving game about getting a little further every day. Floor it through the desert, flatten zombies for cash, launch off ramps, keep your truck on its wheels, and limp back to the garage when the fuel runs out. Then spend what you earned and go again. BUILD YOUR WRECK - Eight upgrade lines: engine, gearbox, wheels, weight, ram plate, fuel tank, boost rocket and roof gun. - Every upgrade bolts something you can see onto your vehicle: stacks, blowers, plows, cages, rockets and guns. - Seven vehicles, from the free Mule pickup to a homemade dune buggy, a hearse, an armored truck and the Firebreak fire engine. Each keeps its own upgrades. SEVEN ROADS TO THE EVAC Dry creeks, salt flats, red canyons, a ghost town at midnight, a broken interstate in a dust storm, the climb to Fort Mercy, and Zagros Road over the Kurdish mountains at sunset. Each one is longer, steeper and more crowded than the last. Take a short drive on Zagros Road from day one. AI ROAD BUILDER AND ROAD CODES Describe any road in your own words, "a ghost town packed with brutes" or "easy salt flats with huge jumps", and Claude designs a brand new road for you to drive. Every road gets a code: send it to a friend with your distance and see if they can beat it. ENGLISH AND KURDISH Play the whole game in English or Sorani Kurdish, and get Kurdish names for your AI roads. MADE TO FEEL GOOD IN YOUR HANDS Real physics, lean buttons for air control, boost on demand, and settings for 30, 60 or 120 FPS with low, medium or high quality. Works with VoiceOver and, on iPad, with a keyboard. Optional in-app purchases, each priced on its button: cash packs, car keys and the Mule Pass, a one-time purchase that doubles the cash of every day. No subscriptions. The art was made for this game with AI image tools from our own designs and prompts; the AI Road Builder is powered by Claude, from Anthropic.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Rust Mule at none against ROTGRADE's shown. Rust Mule also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ROTGRADE sells 6 one-off in-app purchases and Rust Mule sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
ROTGRADE ships an update every 2 weeks, Rust Mule every 2 days. Both last shipped on November 6, 2026.
| Parameter | ROTGRADE | Rust Mule |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 1 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 138 MB | 33 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Two Joes Gaming | Aram Satar |
In-app purchases
ROTGRADE
- Spare Change$0.99
- Buggy Money$2.99
- Remove Ads$2.99
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Sedan Money$4.99
- Muscle Money$9.99
- The Camper$19.99
Rust Mule
- Wad of Cash$1.99
- Mule Pass$4.99
- Sandcat Key$4.99
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Scorpion Key$4.99
- Firebreak Key$9.99
- Juggernaut Key$9.99
- Last Ride Key$9.99
- Bulwark Key$14.99
- Crate of Cash$29.99
- Briefcase of Cash$59.99





