Geometry Dash – How to Increase Your Star Count Faster

This guide contains some advice of how to get more stars at a faster rate using several methods.

Introduction

“Stargrinding” is one of the 3 major playstyles of Geometry Dash. Stargrinding involves the collection of stars in order to unlock new icons and rise higher on the leaderboards.

Many players struggle with finding sightreadable levels, or levels in which the path of gameplay is visible and clearly defined. This guide will show some tricks I’ve found along the way while stargrinding.

There is a “TLDR” section at the end if you don’t have time to read it all btw

Don’t Sort by Most Liked

It’s common to assume that the most liked levels will be the best and of most quality. This may be true in some aspects, but it’s usually not true in terms of visibility and sightreadability. The levels in the most liked section, or the ones that appear when selecting a difficulty range and searching are usually from previous updates when the game was more active and therefore received more likes.

A better method of sorting difficulty is by beating more recently rated levels, since quality and sightreadability of levels has greatly increased since previous updates. These more recently rated levels can be found through using the difficulty and star filter and going to the recent tab, showing a list of all the recently rated levels of that difficulty, although a better way would be to look through the “awarded” tab since levels are better ordered by quality. Also, if you have modifications such as “BetterInfo” then you can even search through former daily levels, since daily levels are also usually of better quality and sightreadability.

Which Difficulty to Choose

A major question people might have is which difficulty of levels to choose. It is best found out by spending some time playing through levels and finding out which ones you can beat first try at least half of the time. What I did was I beat every easy level and then every normal level and began working on every 4 star level once I had built up more skill from the previous difficulties, but really just whichever difficulty gives you more stars without having to practice would probably be best and it really depends on your skill level too.

Also, be sure to keep in mind that, while in the same difficulty range, 4 stars and 5 stars are very different from each other. 4 stars are usually much more sightreadable than 5 stars, since 5 stars are often rated 5 stars instead of 4 because of something being more difficult about them or having aspects that prevent many from first trying them. Not all 5 stars are like this though, just keep in mind there is a gap between them. This gap also applies between 6 and 7 stars, along with 8 and 9 star levels in a smaller way.

Check the Comments

Checking the comment section of a level for a few seconds before playing it is very important for determining if a level is good or not.

For example, if you see several comments talking about a blind transition ot 69% or a triple spike at 98%, then maybe just skip that level and move on to the next. If you see that most of the comments are like “cool level bro” then it’s probably good. Checking the comments can save you from many frustrating deaths.

Stargrinding is an Improvable Skill

Similar to extreme demon grinding, beating levels for stars is also a skill that can be improved on. The more levels you beat, the more you might see patterns of dumb stuff in levels and how to better avoid traps similar to it next time on the spot.

Also, stargrinding helps the player better understand the game’s physics and improves upon the player’s reaction time to sudden obstacles. All of these factors can be improved over time.

Setting Goals and Time Allotments

Setting reasonable goals is an effective way to stay motivated. For example your goal could be to unlock a new icon, or it could be to pass your friends on the leaderboard, or maybe you want to reach a certain spot on the global leaderboard.

All of these goals will help with motivation, but it may be overwhelming looking at how many stars you have left to go. Allotting a certain amount of your day to stargrinding may help with this. For example, if I want to get 10,000 more stars than i currently have by the end of the year, it may seem like a lot. But if i only allot one hour each day to star collection, or try and get 75 stars each day, it becomes much more reasonable.

Of course, if you want to reach star goals more quickly you can always just spend all of your free time stargrinding if you find enjoyment out of that, though try not to burn yourself out and loose motivation because the brightest stars do burn out the fastest. Getting just some stars each day can really build up over time.

Additional Advice

Here are some additional tips that may help:

1. Re-beat daily levels for stars. If you have completed the daily level, it will award stars, however the level you completed is a seperate copy, and the level on the servers is the exact same and will still provide you will stars, and since you already beat it once, it would be easier to beat it for a 2nd time and get double the stars from the same level. This also applies to weekly demons.
2. Don’t play epic or XL levels. Epic rated levels, or the ones with the fire around the difficulty face, will usually prioritize visuals over the visibility of the gameplay in order to achieve the status of being “epic.” XL levels may be sightreadable, however if something kills you near the end of the level it will be much more frustrating and you would have to spend more time than most other levels getting back to where you died at before. Because of that, it’s just better to not bother with epic or XL length levels.
3. 3 good creators that make sightreadable levels are: robotchief, MrSpaghetti, and BrainETR.
4. Be respectful in the comment sections of levels. If something really annoys you about a level, just dislike it and move on instead of wasting time leaving a hateful comment.
5. Save your account data often. Data loss is common since this game hasn’t updated in forever, so be sure to save your game and copy your data files to separate drives in order to avoid devastating data destruction that can erase days of hard work. If your data fails to save, un-download all your downloaded levels and delete some of your scrapped levels or start position copies.

Conclusion

Well that’s about all the advice I’ve got, if I figure out anything else I’ll update the guide. Also feel free to leave your stargrinding advice in the comments, it may help others. My Geometry Dash username is APD9, thanks for reading, bye.

Oh yeah and here’s a TLDR:

1. Sort by most recently rated levels or the awarded tab for better quality levels.
2. Choose whichever difficulty that you can first try at least half of the time.
3. Briefly check the comments of levels before playing in case there’s something that everyone is dying to or if most people are finding the level to be bad.
4. The more you play levels, the better you will get at stargrinding, it’s a seperate skill from extreme demon grinding.
5. Set small, reasonable goals each day and your star count will grow steadily over time.
6. Rebeat daily levels for extra stars, don’t play XL or epic rated levels, and save your account data often.