Quite a challenging and funny kata to solve, well done.

Quite challenging kata in fact, well done.

Updated to String[]. Thanks for paying attention!

Groovy: why do fixed tests pass List<String> as argument, while random tests pass String[] ? You should choose 1 and give proper types in initial code.

recursive function for returning distance

If compiler produce a binary and the binary works, that's clearly legal.

But, as you don't put parenthesis on a variable, it's better to use Invoke() to clarify the context.

My point that some people prefere to complite kata with minimum stuff. But input already insist them to use expansions. At other side, you always can easily get dictionary from array, if you want solve it with em.
Anyway, its only my opinon and you made a good translation

I appreciate this, but the Kata is implemented using a dictionary in almost every language. C# has a dictionary class, so using arrays of tuples instead is a less faithful translation of the original. Plus, the array's search method will throw, which is more burden on the solver. And despite this not being a performance Kata, why would you unnecessarily take an O(n) problem and make it O(nm) just to use 2 less namespaces?

Why not to use array of tuples? It seems more native then add Linq, Collections.Generic and Newtonsoft.Json namespaces

Yes, you are right, it is very similar. Unfortunately, I didn't see that kata before.

it's a (very slightly modified) duplicate of 21 sticks

Fork approved by someone

Let me know how long it took to solve, then I'll know how much fun it was 😜

I did this instead
https://www.codewars.com/kata/58a3f57ecebc06bfcb00009c/solutions/javascript

don't have much spare time, got an appointment.

same, still haven't solved it yet, 8D

I suppose. Just the mood I'm in.