AlgoRun vs Recursive
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
AlgoRun
This game teaches fundamental coding concepts through interactive puzzles. It uses game mechanics inspired by programming principles like functions, loops, and conditionals to build algorithmic thinking skills in a fun and engaging way.
- Algorithmic thinking puzzles
- Sequential instruction execution
- Functions and recursive loops
- Conditionals
- Step-by-step debugging
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A puzzle game for learning, practicing and improving algorithmic thinking. AlgoRun features puzzles that will teach you the basics of coding in a fun interactive way by using game mechanics derived from programming concepts such as: • Sequential Instruction Execution • Functions • Recursive Loops • Conditionals • Step-by-Step Debugging
Recursive
A challenging puzzle game where you guide robots to collect gems by creating simple programs. Master recursion and logic with a minimalistic, easy-to-learn language and diverse level elements.
- Learn a simple programming language
- Solve puzzles with robots and gems
- Master recursion concepts
- Explore diverse level elements
- Challenging, hard puzzles
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Recursive is a puzzle game about recursion, patterns, and programming. It is the perfect game for people who love hard puzzles. Your goal is to help little robots complete their mission and collect all gems by finding the correct pattern and translating it into a short program. # Programming language (no prior knowledge required) The programming language is minimalistic and easy to learn. It doesn't require any prior programming knowledge and consists of only four instructions. - Move forward: Move one cell forward. - Rotate left: Rotate 90° left in place. - Rotate right: Rotate 90° right in place. - Change color: Load a chip of a specified color and execute the instructions it contains. And even with this simple programming language, robots can follow complex patterns thanks to the power of recursion and to other tricks that you can discover along with your progression in the game. # Rich levels Recursive offers a large variety of levels thanks to supporting multiple types of elements. - Robots: They can have different colors that reflect the chip they have loaded. - Gems: Your goal is to collect all of them. - Bugs: They destroy robots and make them disappear. - Chips: They make robots load a different program. - Teleportation gates: They make robots teleport to a different location. - Inactive robots: They are activated when touched by another robot. # Mastering recursion Recursion is said to be hard to understand as a famous quote attributed to Stephen Hawking says: "To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion." However, we believe that playing Recursive is another fun way to understand it or even master it.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: AlgoRun at Free against Recursive's $2.99. AlgoRun also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 14.0). Recursive's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs every 3 weeks) and review sentiment (71% vs 57%). On rating, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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
AlgoRun is free to download; Recursive costs $2.99 up front. AlgoRun sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Recursive sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for AlgoRun against 4.9 for Recursive. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 65 and 28 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 57% of AlgoRun's written reviews are positive against 71% of Recursive's.
AlgoRun ships an update every 3 weeks, Recursive every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on September 14, 2026 and August 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | AlgoRun | Recursive |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.8 (65 ratings) | 4.9 (28 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 57.1% of reviews | 71.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 65 — better | 28 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 14.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 140 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | bitcrumbs s.r.l. | Kidori |
Customer experience
AlgoRun
Recursive
In-app purchases
AlgoRun
- Algorun Premium$1.99
Recursive
- 10 hint credits$0.99
- 20 hint credits$1.99
- 40 hint credits$2.99








