Spelunky 2

Spelunky 2 presents itself as the sequel to Spelunky, but deep down, it is actually the sequel to Spelunky Classic as well.

Notes Unused Level DataThe walls are shifting...

Unused Objects#

BASECAMP_LONGTABLE#

Object name: ENT_TYPE_FLOOR_BASECAMP_LONGTABLE
A 2x0.5 tile big table intended for the Camp. It is functionally identical to the dining tables found throughout the camp. Unlike the dining table, the longtable uses an otherwise unused texture that has nothing on it and does not feature chairs behind it. It can be stood on and makes wooden sounds when landing on it.

SURFACE_COVER#

Object name: ENT_TYPE_DECORATION_SURFACE_COVER
A decoration object that uses otherwise unused graphics meant for the surface of the Camp that ended up unused. The graphics were recolored and repurposed into the ENT_TYPE_DECORATION_DUAT_DARKSAND object, which can be seen in Duat between the bottom row of Duat brick and the sand floor.

BRANCH#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: This could potentially be used in the level generation process and does not persist into gameplay.

Object name: ENT_TYPE_DECORATION_BRANCH
When spawned in through Overlunky, it references the floormisc tileset. None of the sprites in this sheet match with the name BRANCH.

LAVA_DRAIN#

Watch on YouTubeObject name: ENT_TYPE_LOGICAL_LAVA_DRAIN
When spawned in through Overlunky, it places a drain and an oversized fountain graphic three tiles above it. If lava, not water, touches the drain, it gets warped to the fountain and then falls down. This object is similar to the ENT_TYPE_LOGICAL_WATER_DRAIN object, which is used in Tide Pool and Eggplant World for water exclusively. The lava drain can be spawned in level generation with an unused tile code: fountain_head, which spawns the fountain with the drain three tiles below. This tile code is loaded into memory but is never placed in the Lake of Fire, Tide Pool 4-3. The video shows both a water fountain and the unused lava fountain in action.

Unused Graphics#

Object Graphics#

Terra "Mama" Tunnel#

Terra has a full walk animation, but she is only ever seen standing. She also has four total stunned sprites; only one can be seen in the Camp.

Hired Hand#

Hired Hands have sprites for looking up...

looking up on a mount...

and doing the celebrate jump that other characters use in the normal and hard endings as well as winning in Arena.

In the official Spelunky 2 Discord, the head of the celebrate sprites was made into the hhSmile emote.

Additionally, Hired Hands have sprites for crawling. Due to them being AI-controlled, it is very difficult to see these sprites. It is possible to see the first few sprites very briefly in a few situations, but never the full animation.

Eggplant Child#

Like Hired Hands, Eggplant Child has sprites for the celebrate jump, but not look up graphics.

Eggplant Child also has sprites for crawling, but they are difficult to see for the same reasons as the Hired Hand crawl animation said above.

Beg#

Beg has a sprite for standing while holding an item, but he can't pickup weapons to let this be seen.

Apep#

Apep has four unused pre-assembled head sprites. Instead of using these sprites, two separate head sprites are used to create the smooth animation seen in the game.

Very similar sprites can be seen in the Spelunky 2 Gameplay Trailer.

Olmec Ship#

The Olmec Ship has a full interior sprite, but it is not very interesting.

Tileset Graphics#

Basecamp#

The basecamp sheet features an unused Arena sign.

The basecamp sheet also features backup graphics of the TV and the individual decorations that appear on the dining tables, which never appear on their own like this. The Backup text is indeed part of the graphic.

Graphics for the unused longtable object.

Surface#

floor_surface, the sheet that has the blue floor seen at the surface of the Camp, has an unused early version of the entrance and exit doors found in Dwelling. The doors were made taller, and the decorations hanging at the top of the doorway were changed.

Surface (Unused)	Dwelling (Used)

floor_surface, floor_temple, and floor_babylon all have unused spikes that are slightly darker Dwelling spikes.

Surface, Temple of Anubis, Neo Babylon (Unused)	Dwelling (Used)

Graphics for the unused SURFACE_COVER object, which was recolored and reused for Duat.

Stone#

floorstyled_stone features a decoration with Olmec on it that never appears in the game.

The City of Gold#

floorstyled_gold, the sheet that contains the golden bricks for The City of Gold, has a layer door texture. Layer doors do not appear in The City of Gold. This is actually an early Temple of Anubis layer door! The doorway was made wider, had its color made more yellow, and the gliphs on the sides of the frame were changed.

The City of Gold (Unused)	Temple of Anubis (Used)

Ice Caves#

floor_ice features unused textures that suggest that some floor tiles would be covered in snow. Spelunky HD features a chance for Ice Caves levels to be snowing with every tile covered in snow. Potentially related to the unused snowman and snowball graphics.

Here is a mockup image of what the snow would look like in-game done by replacing the top texture of floor with the snow texture.

Sunken City#

border_main features spikes that would be placed on Sunken City's unique bordertile appearance, but spikes are never placed onto the tiles. They are not used for Hundun's spike elevator, and they are not used in Sunken City Arenas; the normal bordertile appearance is used there instead for some reason.

Eggplant World#

floor_eggplant, the sheet for Eggplant World, has unused graphics!
It seems that the vines of Eggplant World were going to have some texture variety, but that did not happen. An alternate texture for the middle of the vine and the end of the vine exist, but are unused.

A layer door texture for Eggplant World exists, but is unused. A layer door does exist in Eggplant World, but it is the Ghist Shop door, which uses different graphics.

Finally, Eggplant World has... unique spike graphics?!? Spikes in Eggplant World goes against the entire idea of the area being peaceful with no dangers. The Eggplant World level file does not even have the spikes tile code defined within it. These graphics are based on the Sunken City spikes.

Here is a mockup image of what these unused Eggplant World graphics would look like in-game.

1x1 Tiles#

Some tilesets feature unique 1x1 graphics for tiles that are unused because the game never places a single tile on its own.

floorstyled_palace, the sheet used for the Palace of Pleasure in Neo Babylon 6-3, features a 1x1 tile.

floorstyled_guts, the sheet used for the insides of Goliath Frogs found in Sunken City, features a 1x1 tile.

Journal#

Idol Sticker#

The journal_stickers sheet, which contains the Spelunky Classic-style graphics, has an unused sticker of an Idol using its Spelunky Classic appearance. There is no sticker of the Tusk Idol.

Obscured Area Art#

The journal features unique artwork of every area for the background of where the journal entry is found. Artwork exists and is used for Tiamat's Throne and Hundun's Hideaway for their respective bosses, but it results in most of the art getting obscured by the boss. Here is the full unobstructed art.

Tiamat's Throne	Hundun's Hideaway

Other#

Snowman and Snowball#

The items sheet features graphics of a snowman and a snowball. In Spelunky HD, snowmen and snowballs would appear in snowy Ice Caves levels, with the snowman being a decoration and the snowball being a snow-covered rock.

OldTextures\ai#

Stored with all the graphics for the game is a folder named OldTextures that features one texture: ai.

This texture seems to depict some objects in the game like ladders, spikes, a crate, a spring trap, a regenerating block, and water and lava. It also features a block with three Zs. Maybe this was related to Hired Hand AI?

fontdebug#

A font sheet named fontdebug exists. It was very likely used for some kind of debug menu or process.

Unused Sounds#

NPC Talk Sounds#

NPCs usually have three sounds for talking that match the tone of the message when they speak: pos (positive), neu (neutral), and neg (negative). These voice clips are only used when the NPC would actually say a line of text, so if there is no line for the voice clip, the voice clip is not said. Parsley, Parsnip, Parmesan, and Beg all have unique neg lines that go unused because of this. Strangely, Parsley and Parmesan's voice clip names are swapped internally. Also, ncp_parmesan_neg does indeed typo npc as ncp.

Parsley: ncp_parmesan_neg
Parsnip: npc_parsnip_neg
Parmesan: npc_parsley_neg
Beg: npc_beg_neg

Vine & Chain Climb Sounds#

Vines and chains have a full set of sounds for climbing them, but they are strangely never used. Climbing vines and chains in-game is completely silent. There are no rope climb sounds.

Vine#

climb_vine01
climb_vine02
climb_vine03
climb_vine04
climb_vine05
climb_vine06
climb_vine07
climb_vine08
climb_vine09
climb_vine10
climb_vine11
climb_vine12

Chain#

climb_chain01
climb_chain02
climb_chain03
climb_chain04
climb_chain05
climb_chain06
climb_chain07
climb_chain08
climb_chain09
climb_chain10
climb_chain11
climb_chain12

Lava Flame#

Strange sounds for what appears to be fire or lava traveling at a high speed, or lava bubbling.

lava_flame01
lava_flame02
lava_flame03
lava_flame04
lava_flame05
lava_flame06

Other Sounds#

bird_chirp#

Sounds of birds chirping. Birds can be heard chirping in the ambience of Jungle and Eggplant World, but this is a different sound.

Chimes#

Two different chimes sounds exist: chimes01 and magic_chime.

chimes01
magic_chime

item_crush#

An placeholder-like sound for items getting crushed exists. Only wooden items like Mattocks, Crossbows, and Hou Yi's Bow make a sound when crushed, and that crush sound is a different unique wooden snap sound.

player_jump04#

A jump sound for players. Spelunky 2 does not use jump sounds for players and instead has many different landing sounds for various materials and the speed of the landing. Classic Guy is the only character to go against this with a jump sound and a silent landing, but his jump sound the same one from Spelunky Classic, not this one. Sounds player_jump01 through 03 do not exist.

poison_loop#

A long sound with bubbling scattered throughout. This appears to be a sound that would constantly play for a poisoned entity, but the game uses separate bubbling sounds that increase in frequency when the poison damage is about to happen.

Unused Text#

To do: Level file comments.

Options - Online#

Grouped with the Online section of the Options menu is text for settings that do not exist:

Output Delay
Delays displaying other players' actions to reduce visual glitches.

Pseudonymization
Use pseudonyms for players from third-party sources.

Leaderboards#

Grouped with the Leaderboards text are some lines that suggest that there was going to be more than just Daily Challenge leaderboards:

Top Runs

Fastest Times

Top Daily Runs

There is also text relating to watching replays of runs on the leaderboard, which isn't possible.

Watch replay
<SYS_ACCEPT/> Watch replay

And then there is this text for a Contextual menu:

<SYS_ACCEPT/> Contextual menu

Tun#

Grouped with Tun's text is this line:

The challenge begins!

This line is placed before the Star and Sun Challenge start messages, so it seems that it would have appeared like a level feeling message when starting the Moon Challenge.

Yang#

Grouped with Yang's text is this line:

You villain!

This line seems to be related to doing something that would anger Yang, but stealing/killing one of his turkeys or destroying his pen or shop uses different lines.

Online#

Grouped under Online are a few interesting messages:

Report
Describe the inappropiate content or offensive behaviour.

Feedback
Describe the bug or suggestion you have encountered while playing Spelunky 2

<SYS_ACCEPT/> Show Gamercard

Reporting what presumably is players is not possible in the game. Same applies to giving feedback and bug reports, but that was instead handled in the official Spelunky 2 Discord server.

Others#

At the end of the strings file is a group titled Others that features one line:

The demo has ended.\nThanks for playing!

This line was used for the demo that was playable at TwitchCon 2018. In the demo, reaching Olmec's Lair 3-1 would begin the Olmec cutscene, but it would fade to black before Olmec breaks out of the stone. After the screen became fully black, this line would appear in the center of the screen and the demo would return to the title screen shortly afterward. The \n forced a linebreak for it to appear on two lines.

Obscure Text#

There are a few lines that are used, but under circumstances that most players would never encounter.

Crushed by Drill#

The drill found in Volcana has a unique death message for getting crushed by it:

CRUSHED
I was crushed by the giant drill.

Getting crushed by the drill requires powering it, then using a method of teleportation to quickly get under it before it stops at the bottom of the level. This message cannot be seen in multiplayer as local multiplayer has a unique set of death messages, while online multiplayer does not even show the game over screen; it just sends everyone back to Dwelling 1-1 after a short delay.

Terra#

Terra has a unique line for first meeting her as Manfred:

Hi, handsome! Find anything good?

This dialog is only displayed for the first meeting; a different line is used for every meetup afterward. The problem with first meeting Terra as Manfred comes from Manfred being unlocked in Olmec's Lair 3-1, which is after where you first meet Terra (in the transition from Dwelling 1-4 to 2-1). In version 1.17.0f and before, the only way to see this dialog was to use save editing to unlock Manfred early, or use save editing to clear shortcut progress to do the first meeting again. Version 1.18.0 added Data Management to the Main Menu's Options menu, which allows players to reset individual parts of their save file without resetting the whole save. Data Management allows clearing shortcut progress without locking characters, so this line can be seen if that is done.

String Comments#

strings00.str, the file that has all English text, has some comments to give more detail about some strings. Most of the comments are made to format the file into readable sections and will not be mentioned.
The first line in the string files is this comment explaining what a comment is.

# This is a comment! Anything after a # does not appear in the game!

The intro poem has a comment saying how it is structured from three sets of nine lines each, with one line chosen randomly from each set.

########################################
## INTRO POEM                         ##
##   Three lines chosen randomly...   ##
########################################

The Tablet of Destiny section of the string files has a comment that gives a definition for aspirant.

# "Aspirant" definition: a person who has ambitions to achieve something

The Shopkeeper section has a comment explaining the tone of the dialog for entering a shop while wearing The True Crown. The line after the comment is used in the game.

# The following line is meant to be slightly mocking:
Oh, hello, Your Majesty! See anything you like, heh heh?

The Shopkeeper section also has a comment for the line when an idol is bought from a player. None of the other vendors have this comment before their own versions of this line. The line after the comment is used in the game.

# Buying an idol from the player:
I'm happy to take that off your hands!

Miscellaneous Content#

Unused Kali Favor Values#

Some entities have unique Kali favor values that cannot be seen because the entity is exclusively found in a backlayer and cannot be brought to the frontlayer and to an altar. There is a way to carry bodies from the backlayer to the frontlayer in local multiplayer: if a player with the Ankh dies, all players will warp to the frontlayer and keep whatever they were holding when the Ankh player died, which theoretically allows some of these unused favor values to be seen.

Dead entities are worth half favor (if they have a corpse that can be sacrificed).

Unused Health Values#

Some entities have health values that cannot be seen either because the entity is invincible or because the entity cannot be damaged with normal methods.

Crown Priority#

In the HUD, only one crown can be displayed at a time. If the player has multiple crowns, there is a priority for which one is displayed. Interestingly, the Crown has higher priority over the Hedjet, but this cannot be seen as the Hedjet and Crown are found in split paths, so only one of the two can be obtained in runs.

Hedjet < Crown < Eggplant Crown < The True Crown is the order of priority from lowest to highest for all crowns. Notably, this is the order the crowns are listed in the Journal.

Tusk Idol Value#

The Tusk Idol is found in Tide Pool and is worth $40,000. This is because it is actually worth $10,000 times the world number. The Tusk Idol would be worth $10,000 in Dwelling, $30,000 in Olmec's Lair, and $60,000 in Neo Babylon for a few examples.

Cosmic Ocean World Number#

Cosmic Ocean is displayed in the menus and HUD as world 7, but it is actually world 8. This explains why treasure increases in value when going from Sunken City to Cosmic Ocean. The menus and HUD are programmed to display world 8 as world 7. Because Cosmic Ocean technically starts at 8-5, the levels 8-1 through 8-4 do not exist.

Olmec Reflecting Projectiles#

A used behavior in the game is that Olmec reflects plasma shots. What cannot be seen is that Olmec also reflects Laser Trap lasers and Lamassu laser shots.

Oddities#

Graphical Oddities#

To do: Some journal entry graphics are not the same as the in-game version.

Pagoda Doors#

Red pagoda doors can be found in Tide Pool, Sunken City, and Eggplant World. The graphics for all three sets of doors have many differences if they are compared. The Tide Pool doorways are the tallest, which causes the dragon design on the top of the frame to be the smallest compared to the Sunken City and Eggplant World doors. The Tide Pool doors are the only one to feature metallic buttons in the top corners. Comparing the Tide Pool Doors and the Eggplant World doors, the fallen rocks and darkness through the door are brighter in the Eggplant World doors. The Eggplant World doorway is the thinnest.

Tide Pool	Sunken City	Eggplant World

Text Oddities#

Death Messages#

The Powder Box death message calls it a powder keg, which is both the Spelunky HD name and internal name in Spelunky 2.

BLOWN UP
A powder keg blew me to smithereens.

The Magmar death message calls it a magma man, which is both the Spelunky HD name and internal name in Spelunky 2.

TORCHED
I was melted by a magma man.

Base Camp Dialogs#

One of the base camp dialogs is the following line.

I found %ls in a crate, but then %ls killed me!

The first %ls pulls from a table of items, while the second %ls pulls from a table of deaths. It is possible for the item to be either "a telepack" or "a hoverpack", which results in the line claiming that telepacks and hoverpacks can be found in crates, which is not possible.

Internal Names#

Most NPCs have a different internal object name compared to their in-game name. Playable characters have an extra set of internal names from their spritesheets being named after colors. There is also strings00.str for another source of internal names.

Playable Characters#

Follower Characters#

NPCs#

The developers have called some NPCs by their internal names in patch notes.

Monsters#

Items#

Traps#

Level Filenames#

Some areas have names never said in-game, but the level filename gives a unique official name.

Other Names#

The healing items that the Eggplant King drops when killed have a very strange internal name: ENT_TYPE_ITEM_PICKUP_GIANTFOOD.

The objects that need to be destroyed in Cosmic Ocean to open the exit are named this internally: ENT_TYPE_ITEM_FLOATING_ORB.

Filename Oddities#

To do: There are more sounds with gaps in numbering.

The sound of Sparrow dying is named leprechaun_die.

The names of Parsley and Parmesan's voice clips are swapped.

Tusk's Bodyguard, Parsley, and the Eggplant King's voice clips spell npc as ncp. The other voice clips spell npc properly.

Revisional Differences#

To do: There is so much more revisional differences with all of the patches that have been released. It would be best to put on a subpage. Graphical changes between revisions. Some journal entry graphics were changed in updates. When the Olmec fight was changed and the floater HP was changed from 3 to 1, the animation of the floaters taking damage but not breaking was left in the game, now unused.

Journal Progress Stickers#

The top-right corner of the journal's main menu displays a sticker that says completion progress. At launch, there were only two progress stickers: a blue 50%, and a green FULL. Only these two stickers were displayed, even if you had more than 50% completion. Version 1.13.0a changed these progression stickers by adding two new versions of the stickers without the text, and by adding a dynamic string of text that says your journal completion progress in real time. Completing the journal would now say 100% instead of FULL. The 50% and FULL stickers remained in the game unused until version 1.25.0, where the graphics were removed to add a new sticker for Elixir.

References#