How to earn three stars on every puzzle
Stars are your personal score in the Vdopa Manor. They never block your progress, but for completionists, a row of three gold stars in every room is the best reward. Here is how the system works and how to fill it.
The rules in short
| Stars | Requirement |
|---|---|
| ⭐ | Solve the puzzle |
| ⭐⭐ | Solve it without the magnifier |
| ⭐⭐⭐ | Solve it without the magnifier, faster than the target time |
The game always keeps your best result; a weaker replay never takes stars away.
Where target times come from
Every puzzle has its own target time, based on its difficulty, number of steps and code length. Early puzzles allow about a minute; deep puzzles with four steps and eight-letter codes allow several minutes.
Importantly, the clock starts after you close the mechanism card, so reading an explanation costs you nothing.
“Solve first, collect later”
- First run: play to finish. Take your time and use the magnifier if needed. The goal is to learn where the code hides.
- Second run: play for stars. Open the same puzzle from the mansion map. Now you know what to do and will usually beat the target comfortably.
Puzzles in Vdopa are identical every time you open them, so this works perfectly.
Shaving off seconds
Type the code on a keyboard. On a computer typing is much faster than clicking on-screen keys, and Backspace fixes mistakes.
Read from the found-code strip instead of studying the board; the letters are already lined up above the input boxes.
Be ready between steps. In multi-step puzzles the next step appears the moment one is cleared.
Replays of a sequence cost time. If you are going for three stars, try to lock the sequence into memory on the first viewing.
Stars and the magnifier
The magnifier caps a puzzle at one star. If three stars is the goal, use it only on your first, learning run and play the second run without help.
What stars are for
Today, stars show your skill on the home screen, on the mansion map (rooms with many stars wear gold stars) and in your profile. We plan to include total stars in leaderboards. Stars cannot be exchanged for coins; coins come only from the competitive mode.
Ready? Go collect some stars.