Stars
Stars are a core mechanic in Seashine. While the game can technically be played without ever touching them, they are essential if you want to unlock content and make surviving the deep much easier.
How to Get Stars
Section titled “How to Get Stars”In the environment
Section titled “In the environment”The most common way to collect stars is through organic exploration. You will find them clinging to rock faces throughout every cave type—from cramped crevices to sprawling caverns. Simply swim into the rock near a star to collect it.
Discovery rewards
Section titled “Discovery rewards”Every time you discover a new species in Seashine, you receive stars as a reward. The rarer, more elusive, or more dangerous the creature, the higher the star payout.
Star pack in-app purchases (IAP)
Section titled “Star pack in-app purchases (IAP)”You can purchase consumable star packs directly from the in-game shop. While completely optional, buying stars is a great way to support ongoing development while unlocking content faster.
The Star Doubler IAP
Section titled “The Star Doubler IAP”The Star Doubler is a permanent, non-consumable in-app purchase. It doubles every star you collect in the environment and doubles every creature discovery reward forever. Because it is non-consumable, you can restore this purchase across reinstallations or on new devices, provided you use the same app store account.
Having difficulty accumulating stars?
Section titled “Having difficulty accumulating stars?”Some players feel stars take too long to collect, while others accumulate hundreds effortlessly.
The game’s economy is fundamentally tuned in the player’s favor. Give it a bit of practice and patience, and you will find your balance builds up steadily.
Seashine is completely free, contains zero ads, and avoids predatory monetization tactics like forced timers or pay-to-win barriers. Making stars trivial to farm would remove all sense of progression, while further eroding the negligible revenue from optional purchases that currently isn’t even enough to keep this indie project afloat.
If you still struggle to build a balance, consider supporting a solo disabled developer by purchasing a star pack or the Star Doubler.
What Stars Are Used For
Section titled “What Stars Are Used For”Triggering abilities
Section titled “Triggering abilities”During a run, as long as you have at least one star in your balance, you can recover some light and activate your equipped abilities by either:
- Tapping the Star icon in the top-right corner, or
- Double-tapping anywhere on the screen (outside UI buttons).
Activating your abilities consumes one star and triggers a brief cooldown before another star can be used.
Options to change the ability trigger shortcut are coming in the next update.
Unlocking content
Section titled “Unlocking content”From the main menu, stars serve as currency to permanently unlock:
- New playable jellyfish
- New abilities
- Secret creatures
Important Technical Details
Section titled “Important Technical Details”The 999 star hard cap
Section titled “The 999 star hard cap”Seashine features a strict hard cap of 999 stars. This cap exists deliberately as an ethical guardrail to prevent vulnerable players from overspending on currency.
- Environmental stars stop spawning shortly before you hit the 999 threshold so discovery rewards can still be claimed.
- The in-game shop automatically disables any star pack purchase that would cause your total balance to exceed 999.
Local storage vs. cloud sync
Section titled “Local storage vs. cloud sync”Seashine is built to be played entirely offline without mandatory user accounts or login screens. Because of this architecture, star currency is saved locally on your device and does not sync to the cloud.
When playing offline, stars are continuously earned, spent, and saved locally. Without requiring an online server check every time you pick up or spend a star, there is no reliable way to synchronize this live balance across multiple devices or restore spent amounts after an uninstall without opening the door to save-file corruption and duplication exploits.
Consequently:
- Each device maintains its own separate star balance.
- Reinstalling the game or switching devices will reset unspent local stars.
How to protect your progress across devices
Section titled “How to protect your progress across devices”Spend your stars on permanent unlocks (abilities, playable jellyfish, and Kohatora).
Unlike the local star wallet, permanent unlocks sync to your platform’s cloud save (Apple iCloud / Google Play Games). Once an item is unlocked, it is registered permanently to your platform’s account (Apple iCloud or Google Play Games) and will automatically restore whenever you reinstall the game or switch devices within the same operating system (iOS to iOS, or Android to Android).
Cross-platform cloud sync (moving progress between iOS and Android) is not supported.