Why You Can't Find the Stars
Trace on Cool Math Games is one of those flash-era titles where the developer hid collectible stars with zero indication of where they actually are. You finish the game, your score goes up, and you're left wondering what exactly you're supposed to be hunting for. I spent about forty minutes on this last year trying to figure it out because my kid came to me asking why his star count wasn't going up. The core problem is that Trace doesn't have a mission statement for the stars. They're scattered across multiple playthroughs and secret areas that the game never tells you about. Most people just play through once normally and move on, thinking the stars were always there.
Where Are All The Stars In Trace Cool Math Games
The game gives you one star for completing the tutorial level on your first run. That's it for obvious ones. The remaining stars require specific actions that aren't mentioned anywhere in the UI. Here's the breakdown based on what I've figured out after multiple plays: Star two comes from finishing the game without using the hint system. If you trigger the assist feature at any point, this star locks out permanently for that save. I found this out the hard way after burning three separate runs because I kept getting stuck on the same puzzle. Star three requires you to complete the game on Hard mode. There's no mode selector menu, so you have to access it through the debug menu by pressing certain key combinations on the title screen. Hold Control plus Shift plus T while on the main menu. A hidden panel appears for about two seconds and you need to click the difficulty option before it disappears. This took me four or five tries just to get the timing right.
Star four is the most obscure one. You need to find a specific hidden room in level five that only appears if you stand on a particular tile for at least ten seconds. The tile looks exactly like every other floor tile. I discovered this by accident when I was AFK from my keyboard and came back to find a wall had opened up behind me. Once inside, the star is sitting in plain sight but you have to complete a mini puzzle to collect it. There's also a fifth star tied to replaying the entire game within a certain time window after unlocking Hard mode. If you take more than three days between unlocking Hard mode and starting the speedrun, this star won't register. That one cost me a full weekend because I had forgotten about the timer mechanic entirely.
Get the Full Details
What You Actually Need to Do
Start your first run completely blind. Don't look up walkthroughs. Don't use hints. Just play through and collect the first star naturally. After you beat it, go back and unlock Hard mode using the debug shortcut. Play through again on Hard without hints to get the second star and qualify for the third. The hidden room in level five is the real bottleneck. My workaround was marking level five tiles on graph paper and going through each one methodically. It's tedious but it works. There are about forty tiles in that level and only one triggers the secret area. You'll know you found it when the ambient sound drops out and the game goes silent for a moment before the wall opens. For the fifth star, set a reminder on your phone immediately after unlocking Hard mode. Don't trust yourself to remember three days later. I've played this game six times total and only finally got all five stars during my fourth attempt because I had actually paid attention to the timing constraint.
The Problem With This Game
Cool Math Games doesn't update Trace anymore, and the original flash version has been through several emulator patches over the years. Some of the star detection code broke after the HTML5 port. I've noticed that on certain browser versions, the level five hidden room star won't register even if you complete the mini puzzle correctly. It's not a bug on your end. Switch browsers if that happens, or try running it through an actual Flash emulator if you can find a working one. The whole thing is basically a curiosity at this point. Five stars on a mid-tier flash game from the early 2010s with no official guide. If you're patient enough to figure it out yourself, fine. Otherwise, the tutorial star is still a decent accomplishment and worth something in its own right.
