Recursive vs Sumaddle
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
Sumaddle
This logic puzzle game transforms pencil-and-paper challenges into interactive brain teasers. Fit number combinations to clues using pure logic, with no mental arithmetic required. Enjoy over 150 free puzzles of varying difficulty, with built-in help and offline play.
- Interactive logic puzzles
- Number combination fitting
- Pure logic solving
- Built-in help and mistake correction
- Over 150 free puzzles
- Offline play
- Ad-free experience
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This type of logical puzzle was first seen in the Japan Puzzle Championship 2006 and is sometimes known as Doppelblock, or Smashed Sums. When played with pencil and paper, these puzzles can be hard work to solve. Sumaddle changes that by transforming the puzzles into interactive brain teasers that unfold before your eyes. Each puzzle has a unique solution. Finding the solution involves fitting the number combinations to the clues. The app makes it easy to view the possible combinations, you don’t need to do any sums in your head. Instead, you are able to focus on using logic to narrow down the combinations and find a fitting arrangement. The puzzles come in a range of sizes and difficulties, to suit all levels of skill and puzzling purposes. Choose a small puzzle to idle away a minute or two while waiting in a queue, or a big puzzle to give your brain some exercise during a coffee break! Some reasons why you will enjoy playing Sumaddle: • more than 150 puzzles are included for free • all puzzles can be solved with pure logic, no mental arithmetic required • the sophisticated built-in help can explain the logical reasoning at each step and also fix mistakes if you go wrong • the built-in help is completely free, use it as much as you like • works offline (great for long journeys) • a high standard of accessibility, including comprehensive support for VoiceOver • ad-free play - there are absolutely no ads! IGRS age rating (Indonesia Game Rating System): 3+ Designed and developed in Winterthur, Switzerland
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Sumaddle at Free against Recursive's $2.99. Sumaddle also leads on review sentiment (95% vs 71%) and ratings volume (769 vs 28). Recursive's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs every 3 weeks) and device support (4 vs 2). On rating, 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
Sumaddle is free to download; Recursive costs $2.99 up front. Recursive sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and Sumaddle sells 15 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 — 4.9 for Recursive against 4.9 for Sumaddle. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sumaddle has 769 ratings behind it against 28, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 71% of Recursive's written reviews are positive against 95% of Sumaddle's.
Recursive ships an update every 4 days, Sumaddle every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Recursive | Sumaddle |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.9 (28 ratings) | 4.9 (769 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 71.4% of reviews | 94.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 28 | 769 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 31 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kidori | Jonathan Buchanan |
Customer experience
Recursive
Sumaddle
Bugs and requests
Recursive
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Sumaddle
Reported bugs
2 issues- Losing progress when minimizing the app
- Inconsistent difficulty ratings
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to selectively pencil in notes
- More difficult puzzle options
- Synced progress across devices
- Detailed statistics and leaderboard
In-app purchases
Recursive
- 10 hint credits$0.99
- 20 hint credits$1.99
- 40 hint credits$2.99
Sumaddle
- Quirky, Pack 5$0.99
- Very Difficult Puzzles$0.99
- Quirky, Pack 1$0.99
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- Premium 9x9 Puzzles, Pack 1$0.99
- Crafty, Pack 1$0.99
- Crafty, Pack 2$0.99
- Crafty, Pack 3$0.99
- Sneaky, Pack 1$0.99
- Sneaky, Pack 2$0.99
- Sneaky, Pack 3$0.99
- Tricky, Pack 1$0.99
- Tricky, Pack 2$0.99
- Tricky, Pack 3$0.99
- Assorted Puzzles$0.99
- Puzzle Generator$9.99









