Sugar Stars are one of the elements in Candy Crush Saga. They are awarded if the player scores double the three-star goal, and can substitute for Gold Crowns for certain events and features. They were introduced circa July 2019, around the same period as Odus's levels, and are a HTML5 feature.
The stars require twice as much score for 3 stars; hence, they can be hard or nearly impossible to attain. If you have sugar stars and a golden crown on a level, then it will say "Sweet Combo! Mastery on the first try!" and higher points. When the target score for Sugar Stars is reached, the voice in the game can be heard saying "Sugar Stars!" If the player passes the level, he or she will keep the Sugar Stars, indicated by three cyan stars on the map for that level.
The sugar stars score is always exactly double the 3-star score. For example, if the 3-star score is 200,000 points, the sugar stars score is 400,000 points. This only applies from Level 36 and beyond; the player instead can't earn Sugar Stars in the first three episodes under any circumstances.
Sugar stars are used to mark mastery of levels, like Gold Crowns, also indicated on completed levels. Mastered levels contribute to the progress towards the Master Trophy, conferring a 10% bonus score, 5 minutes off in lives, and Extra Moves at the start of the level for the next episode. Obtaining Sugar Stars in a level awards 25 experience points to the Fantastic Five challenge.
Hard levels to earn three stars[]
Until about the end of Flash development, scoring and stars are emphasized in the game. Some players would not mind obtaining less than three stars on a level, while others would strive hard to earn three stars as an extra challenge.
Some levels proved almost impossible to earn Sugar Stars, which is required for certain events like Master Titles, which subsequently conferred boosts on the next episode. This highlighted the almost missable nature of Sugar Stars, much like Gold Crowns.
Flash Version[]
This is one of the very few updates applied to Flash since 2019, a point where its levels were already spared from the numerous HTML5 redesigns, and that timed levels continued to exist there. The effects are completely unintentional, however.
The effects of this feature can been seen on Flash, even though this is an HTML5 feature. Sugar stars cannot be earned when playing on Flash. However, should the player finish a level with sugar stars after completing on HTML5, then the game would register as if the player has earned four stars serverside. If you go back to the Flash version of the site, levels completed with Sugar Stars instead display no stars on Flash. When you click on this level, it doesn't say the target score, but there were three stars. It also said "et taret," which means "and it would be" in Latin, at 1,000,000 points. Furthermore, in some levels which you already obtained sugar stars on HTML5, it became impossible to get a million points on the Flash playthrough.
This glitch was never resolved, since the Flash edition stopped developing not long after the release of Peppermint Portal in 2018, a year before the inception of this feature. At that time, the Flash edition stayed live for just over a year, before the sole platform hosting this edition, King.com, switched to HTML5.
Trivia[]
- Sugar stars won't be rewarded retroactively. If you meet the score requirement for sugar stars much earlier (say, a year ago before its release) or on Flash, you won't get sugar stars. If you haven't gotten sugar stars on an old level, you must reach its current sugar stars score requirement to get sugar stars.