Hell and Back vs CodeBastion
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hell and Back
Embark on a sci-fi roguelike RPG adventure to close a portal to hell on Mars. Fight, loot, and upgrade your gear in turn-based combat, recruiting mercenaries and making critical decisions to survive.
- Procedural and handcrafted levels
- Weapon and armor upgrades
- Mercenary recruitment
- Challenging quests and bosses
- Deep RPG progression
- Turn-based combat
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A sci‑fi roguelike RPG where you descend into hell to close the portal. A portal to hell has opened on Mars Base - and you’re the only one left to stop it. Fight, loot, upgrade, and survive in a turn‑based roguelike RPG where every run is different! - Procedural + handcrafted levels for endless replayability - Upgrade weapons and armor using power cells - Recruit mercenaries to build you squad - Challenging quests and bosses that evolve as you progress in this dungeon crawler - Deep RPG progression with stat points and gear builds - Classic roguelike tension - every decision matters - Turn based RPG action Do you have what it takes to descend into hell and come back alive?
CodeBastion
Forge a city from a humble camp into a lasting bastion through strategic idle clicker and incremental city-building mechanics. Manage resources, assign citizens to jobs, research new technologies, and embark on expeditions to expand your legacy.
- Idle clicker and incremental progression
- Resource and citizen management
- Deep skill tree with research
- Expeditions and exploration
- Timed defense challenges
- Offline progress
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Build a city from its first camp into a lasting bastion in Code Bastion, a strategic idle clicker and incremental city-builder. Begin in Summary, where every tap matters. Gather wood, stone, food, and science through quick actions, manage your energy, watch your population, and keep your city moving even while you are away. Your resources continue to grow through citizen jobs and buildings, while seasons, incidents, and storage limits keep every plan under pressure. Move to Development to unlock a large skill tree across economy, construction, society, and expeditions. Each research choice opens new buildings, improves production, increases storage, strengthens manual gathering, expands your population, and prepares your city for the frontier. Turn a fragile settlement into a reliable system of farms, sawmills, quarries, mines, warehouses, markets, universities, barracks, walls, and more. Use the Resources screen to assign citizens to the jobs that matter most. Balance food, wood, stone, iron, coal, steel, gold, science, and influence. Build capacity before production overflows, keep enough workers in essential buildings, and adapt to changing seasons. Missions give every stage of the city a direction. Complete daily tasks, pursue a weekly campaign, and progress through a five-chapter city legacy: found the settlement, grow it into a city, open the frontier, endure its threats, and build a lasting legacy. When the city is ready, enter Expeditions. Train citizens, assign roles, craft preparation items, reveal a procedural map tile by tile, recruit from camps, discover points of interest, and research a catalogue of hidden treasures. Beyond the walls, every expedition can bring resources, experience, discoveries, and risks. Prepare for incursions with passive defenders and a timed defense challenge. Gather temporary materials, build defenses, create weapons, and decide how to hold the line when the frontier strikes back. CODE BASTION FEATURES Idle clicker and strategic incremental progression Quick actions, energy management, and offline progress Deep skill tree with research, upgrades, and unlocks Resources, citizen jobs, buildings, storage, and seasons Daily tasks, weekly campaigns, and city-wide goals Procedural exploration map, expeditions, equipment, and loot Treasure research, defense roles, incursions, and timed battles Five supported languages: English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian Build deliberately, explore carefully, and defend what you have created.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: CodeBastion at 100% against Hell and Back's 25%. CodeBastion also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.0) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). On price, ratings volume and device support 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. Hell and Back sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. CodeBastion asks for nothing beyond the download.
CodeBastion holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 7 and 4 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 25% of Hell and Back's written reviews are positive against 100% of CodeBastion's.
Hell and Back ships an update every 7 months, CodeBastion every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hell and Back | CodeBastion |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.0 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 25.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 45 MB | 40 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Brandon Stecklein | Gines Ortiz |
Customer experience
Hell and Back
CodeBastion
In-app purchases
Hell and Back
- 100 Ape Coins$0.99
- Hell and Back Full Upgrade$1.99
CodeBastion
No in-app purchases









