Recursed

A puzzle game where the rooms are items and the items are rooms. Get to the goal by moving, rearranging and duplicating rooms and altering the structure of the world.

Recursed is a indie, puzzle and 2d game developed by Portponky and published by Shambles Software.
Released on September 30th 2016 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 9 languages: English, French, German, Czech, Spanish - Spain, Polish, Russian, Korean and Portuguese - Brazil.

It has received 551 reviews of which 541 were positive and 10 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍

The game is currently priced at 1.94€ on Steam and has a 75% discount.

The Steam community has classified Recursed into these genres:

Indie Puzzle 2D Puzzle-Platformer Difficult Adventure Great Soundtrack Female Protagonist Pixel Graphics Family Friendly Platformer

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Recursed through various videos and screenshots.

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Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *: Windows 7
Processor: Yes
Memory: 100 MB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 3.1
Storage: 80 MB available space

MacOS

OS: 10.9
Processor: 64 bit
Memory: 100 MB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 3.1
Storage: 80 MB available space

Linux

OS: Debian 8 / Ubuntu 14.04 or above
Processor: 64 bit
Memory: 100 MB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 3.1
Storage: 80 MB available space

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Dec. 2024

Difficulty: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ Quality: ★★★★★★★★★☆ Recursed is a very unmemorable game. There are very few "aha" moments where the solution suddenly clicks and you feel like you're having a brainblast, and the puzzle solutions get incredibly complex and lengthy. It also has very bad QoL, with no undo, and no ability to see any rooms other than the one you're in. ...this game is brilliant because all of these sins somehow cancel each other out and turn into a game that's incredibly fun, radically different from any other puzzle game I've played, and extremely important to me. When I first played the game, I was pretty bad at puzzles and just fumbled around randomly. Because there were no aha moments, I didn't get much reward out of playing it and didn't find it fun. Eventually I hit a brick wall. However, at that point I realized the aforementioned design choices meant I was forced to plan out the entire solutions to each puzzle in my head before executing them, so I'd know exactly what to do. So I tried to start planning my solutions, and as I solved more puzzles, I noticed I started developing this godlike power to look at the puzzle, imprint the whole thing into my short-term memory, use logic to deduce the solution step by step, and watch the magic happen. This obviously didn't mean I got the puzzles first try, but I could use feedback the game gave on my failed attempts to alter my logic until getting the solution. A lot of puzzle games try to trick the player into thinking exactly what the developer wants them to think at every point in the game, so it feels like the game is reading your mind. I applaud that too, but this is the complete opposite. These incredibly intricate solutions truly felt like I created them entirely within my own brain, with the game only serving as a helping hand at certain points. It felt like I was having a brainblast while playing it. So yeah this game basically taught me how to plan, and thus get good at puzzles. I hope it will do the same to you, and offer the same feeling of sheer power over the solutions you will truly have invented.

Nov. 2024

Objectively a very well made puzzle game, but the levels get really convoluted and you can softlock yourself with one misinput. As someone who is bad at complex puzzles and hates redoing steps over and over, I really wish it had a Baba is You style undo button.

July 2024

This game is a flawed gem. If I could give a neutral rating, I would. There's a lot of janky garbage, only having a restart for the entire level results in a lot of brutal tedium, the art for dynamic objects is bad, the effect for beating a level is a hard cut to black on a cymbal crash which is INCREDIBLY jarring (I thought I died the first few times!), the music doesn't fit and starts to grate about the fifth play, the bird that detects unsolvable situations showed up one (1) time in my playthrough (and I bricked a level WAY more than once), and some of the levels are trash (some endgame levels throw random precision-platformer challenges at you for some god-forsaken reason). That said, this game has some brilliant puzzles and I think it's worth digging through the muck to get to them. One of the things I like about this game is how the (good) puzzles are structured. Most games will present you with a convoluted Gordian's Knot setup, and then task you with using the puzzle rules to unravel the challenge and fulfill the require restraints. (That sort of level is present, with varying quality.) The best levels in this game take the opposite approach: you're given a limited number of objects, and you have to construct the convoluted level topology through the recursive chests that lets you solve the level. Truly mind-bending challenges, and worth the other struggles. Overall, I'm a big fan of the good parts of the game. I hope that Recursed 2 does away with the BS levels, gets a new coat of paint, and adds an undo/rewind button because only restart is just BRUTAL. Seriously, some of the endgame levels take 5 minutes of platforming and juggling just to get to the point where I bricked the level last time.

July 2024

The game doesn't look like much, and it doesn't seem to have received the level of attention of certain other puzzle games with which it shares a niche, but I feel that a lot of love and craftsmanship has gone into it. The rules of the game are simple enough, once you figure them out, but it can take a while to realise the ways you can use them to achieve your objective. For example, it took me some trial and error before I realised that you can, in fact, exit an enchanted chest containing itself that you have removed from its original room, but only if you jump inside first and you can only exit as many times as you have entered before you're banished to the shadow realm. Puzzles that appear impossible can have deceptively simple solutions, but realising such a solution can require you hold more in your head than a human brain can comfortably accommodate. There's something I find very pleasing about the soundtrack. It's simple, but it sets a cheerful tone that goes some way to offsetting the headache I feel as I try to figure out which chest I am supposed to be taking into the other chest so I can take a jar-clone of the chest outside of the chest outside of the chest. One complaint I have is that once or twice a level seems to call for user interactions that aren't natural (eg dropping an item off an edge without falling off yourself, so that you can take another item down, when the controls mostly restrict you to either dropping an item at your feet or yeeting it across the room). My other complaint is that the volume level for the dialogue (monologue?) is set too low, and doesn't have a separate volume slider, so it's either loud sound effects or quiet voice acting. I hope this game gets more appreciation, and I hope the developer has spent the 8(!) years since it was released further honing his skills. I'm definitely interested to see what else he's worked on.

Jan. 2024

I know it may look not that attractive like other puzzle games, but believe me, it's very well made game with own a-ha mements and difficulty balancing between "I need to think this through one more time" and "I rather check walkthrough on YouTube".

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Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

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Last Updates

Steam data	14 December 2024 00:34
SteamSpy data	18 December 2024 17:50
Steam price	24 December 2024 20:44
Steam reviews	25 December 2024 01:50

-75% 7.79€ 1.94€

9.1

541

Online players

Developer

Portponky

Publisher

Shambles Software

Release 30 Sep 2016

Platforms