This is a frustrating kata indeed. And the complexity doesn't come from solving the issue but finding a solution that fits all the guidelines, which aren't discovered until the failed test messages are given.Please consider either mentioning the requisites in the actual problem description or refactoring "Anti-cheat" section.

CoffeeScript translation

• Artifical requirements make the Kata much more frustrating than it needs to be, but not necessarily more challenging or rewarding
• As @akar-0 mentioned, the checks against recursion in the submissions tests aren't mentioned anywhere in the description, nor are they present in the sample tests
• The check against recursion is too weak and can easily be bypassed by changing the name of the recursive function (see my solution)

The best course of action is probably to drop the no loops / no recursion requirement altogether.

Re-raising because cliffstamp is incompetent:

Need better random tests. Currently it's very weak.

One cannot use recursion to solve this kata, the description does not state that.

Running the code sometimes gives an error. In my case the first time I tried the code it gave an error bit the second time it passed. I suugest that you look into this

Exact duplicate of this approved Kata in terms of the bug fix required to pass all the tests. This means that this Kata fails to teach novel content to the user undertaking it. The lack of novel content in a Kata as an Issue is recognised as an official CW stance.