Comparison

Pipe master 2 vs Backlash

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pipe master 2

Features
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Puzzle game where players are challenged to strategically place various pipe pieces to connect a water source to its destination. Each level presents a grid filled with obstacles, requiring careful planning and rotation of pipes to create a seamless water flow. As players progress, the difficulty increases with more complex pipe layouts and limited moves. This game offers endless entertainment for puzzle lovers.

About

Backlash

Build a complex automaton, gear by gear, to repair a dying city's steam engine. Solve intricate mechanical puzzles by understanding gear geometry and mechanics. Experience a story-driven campaign with endless replayability and challenging new modes.

Highlights
  • Build one continuous machine across chapters
  • Assemble four distinct automaton systems
  • Solve puzzles by reading machine mechanics
  • Utilize shafts, belts, and couplers
  • Unlock New Game+ and Endless modes
  • Earn dozens of in-app achievements
Features
Read full description

Ironhaven, 1887. The Sovereign — the great steam engine at the heart of the city — is dying. A catastrophic backlash has spread through its gear train: microscopic gaps between teeth, compounding with every revolution. The city grows cold. Human hands are too crude to reach the fault. So you build CASPAR — a Computational Automaton for Steam-Powered Analysis and Repair — assembled gear by gear and sent into the Sovereign to correct what no one else can reach. BUILD ONE CONTINUOUS MACHINE Backlash isn't a stack of disconnected puzzles — it's one machine you assemble across four chapters. Every gear you place stays placed, becoming the foundation the next section meshes onto. Finish a chapter and the organ you built docks into CASPAR's growing body, spinning and driving the next. FOUR SYSTEMS, ONE AUTOMATON - The Drive Heart — CASPAR's power core, a radial gear-train heart - The Timing Mind — a precision calculating mechanism of gears, belts, and chains - The Iron Frame — a skeleton of shafts and gears, CASPAR's body and limbs - First Light — the ocular core; the eyes open as every system turns as one READ THE MACHINE, NOT THE HINTS Sockets don't tell you what fits. Gears mesh by size and geometry — small meets medium edge-on, medium meets large on the diagonal — and you work out which piece belongs where by reading how the machine wants to turn. Get it wrong and the mechanism jams; get it right and it locks in, running for good. MORE THAN GEARS As CASPAR grows more intricate, so do the tools: rigid shafts couple gears that can't mesh directly, chains and belts carry motion — and drive — across open gaps, and couplers correct a gear spinning the wrong way. Every mechanic you learn keeps returning, woven deeper into later machines. NEW GAME+ AND ENDLESS Finish the story and rebuild CASPAR from scratch on a harder New Game+ pass, with the training wheels off. Clear that and Endless mode opens: procedurally generated machines that grow larger and more elaborate the deeper you climb, layering in shafts, belts, and couplers as you go. Your best depth and lifetime solves are tracked, with dozens of in-app achievements to chase. A QUIET, MECHANICAL PUZZLE GAME No timers, no combat, no fail states you can't undo — just gears, logic, and the satisfaction of watching a machine you built actually run. Free to play, with the occasional ad between chapters and Endless machines. Can you fix the backlash before Ironhaven runs out of steam?

Screenshots

Pipe master 22 screens
Backlash4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Backlash at none against Pipe master 2's 3. Pipe master 2's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 4 weeks). On price 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Pipe master 2 sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Backlash asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pipe master 2 ships an update every 2 days, Backlash every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 5 level
Pipe master 2 versus Backlash: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPipe master 2Backlash
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 4 weeks
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Ad-supported
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB125 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPetar JurosIllmanajed Games LLC

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Pipe master 2

One-time3
  • Advanced campaign$1.99
  • Small donation$4.99
  • Big donation$9.99
None

Backlash

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pipe master 2 free?
Pipe master 2 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Backlash free?
Backlash is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Pipe master 2 or Backlash have ads?
Backlash shows ads; Pipe master 2 does not.
Which is updated more often, Pipe master 2 or Backlash?
Pipe master 2 ships an update every 2 days, and Backlash every 4 weeks. Most recently, Pipe master 2 was updated on October 25, 2026 and Backlash on October 31, 2026.

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