Star tokens

Star tokens are a game mechanic from the Hot Air series.

In each level of the Hot Air games, there are a certain amount of stars placed around the level. Usually these stars are in hard to reach or dangerous places, making them a challenge to get.

Hot Air
In the first Hot Air game, the star tokens look no different from Stars. On the level select screen there are four rows that overall contain twenty levels that are accessible the normal way (by completing the level prior to it), but the last row of five levels are levels that can only be unlocked by collecting a certain amount of star tokens. Over each of these level images is a picture of a large gold star with the number of tokens needed to unlock the level in it.

Once the player has collected all the stars in a level and then completes the level, they will be taken back to the level select screen where a spinning image of a star token appears over the level they just completed, signifying that they have collected all the stars in the level. If a player collects ten star tokens, they will unlock the first "star-token locked" level. The next is unlocked by collecting fourteen, then eighteen, twenty-two, and finally twenty-four (all the star tokens in the game). The last two (twenty-two and twenty-four) are able to be unlocked because the levels that were previously unlocked by star tokens contain stars within them as well.