Hey there loyal Appspy readers!

Thank you once again for your responses. Special shout outs to Jastootie and Taekon for their detailed answers. It seems that when it comes to this week’s question, most people go all in or nothing, either having a completionist’s attitude to obtaining all the stars, or not caring about anything but forward progression.

My approach can be summed up as optimism slowly declining into apathy. For most of these games, my goals start out noble. “Of course I’ll grab every star, that’s part of the gameplay, and the challenge”. For the first batch of levels, this usually suffices as the game hasn’t become difficult yet, and not too much advanced planning is required.

Then once the levels start getting more devious, my dedication to the initial goal waines. “Eh, so I missed the one star, that’s not a problem. I still have two”, and then this quickly turns into, “As long as I’m completing the levels, I can come back for the stars later”. Do I come back for the stars later? The answer is no.

I think though it comes down to how engaged with a certain game you are. If you plough through Cut the Rope or Pudding Monsters, and are looking for more content, going back and acquiring three stars can tide you over until the next update (I know Bike Baron had a similar effect on me). And of course if you have that completionist tendency, you’re not going to get to the end unless every star has been acquired.

It’s interesting how what could be considered a bonus, has become not only such an integral part of gameplay, but of the iOS gamescape in general.

I wish you all a pleasant weekend. On Monday there will be a new question, but until then, happy gaming all!