Beating Olmec

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.10 on 28 October 2026.

This page describes a secret.

Olmec waits on level 16, Olmec's Lair, the last level of the game. Nothing the player carries hurts him: only Lava kills him, and the lava is under the lair's floor and the rock below it ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Each of his slams breaks the blocks he lands on, so the fight is spent drawing slams from him in one place until he has dug himself down into it. His death opens the lair's door to the ending. The steps' clips are cut from one run that beats him with seed 1 ^[4].

• Ropes, to climb back out of the shaft his slams dig: the door is up in the hall ^[5]. The run uses all four it has ^[4].

1. Wait while he wakes. The player arrives at the hall's left door and can't move while the view pans to Olmec, he breaks out of his stone and makes his first hop and slam (Olmec's awakening) ^{[6] [7]}. The clip shows the whole awakening ^[8].

2. Mind the Cavemen. As Olmec first hops, the three Cavemen bowing before him get up and charge, facing right, away from the player's door ^[9]. They're still a danger: in a run with the same seed as the guide's, they beat a player who never moves from the entrance to death ^[10]. The Caveman's page has what kills them.

3. Wait at one end of the hall and let him come. After the first 10 steps of each hop, Olmec drifts toward a player who is past either side of him ^[11]. In the run, the player waits by the left door, and Olmec hops across the hall to him ^[12].

4. When he stops in the air over you, get out from under him. A hop stops dead when the player is lower than Olmec's top and within 32 pixels of his middle; after 20 steps he slams straight down ^{[13] [14]}. Run clear to either side: a player still under him is crushed, whatever his hearts ^[15]. In the clip, Olmec stops over the player, who runs clear, and his slam breaks the floor ^[16].

5. Keep him slamming in the same place, and follow him down. Every block a slam lands on breaks ^[17], so slams in one place dig a shaft through the hall's floor and the rock under it, toward the lava (the lair's layout). A wall stops his drift ^[18], so pinned against one he lands in the same place each time; the run keeps him at the left end. To draw the next slam, the player has to be below Olmec's top, so he goes down into the shaft beside him. In the clip, two more slams take Olmec a block deeper each ^[19].

6. If he reaches the lava by the left wall, stay to his right. There, his checks for lava test a point inside the wall, so he sits in it unharmed until a hop drifts him off the wall, which it does only toward a player past his right side (Olmec's death in the lava) ^[20]. Off the wall, he stops, sinks and dies ^[2]. In the clip, his last slam takes him into the lava by the wall, where he sits for two seconds; he starts to sink only when he hops out and drifts toward the player ^[21].

7. Climb out and take the door. When Olmec dies, the door at the right end of the hall becomes the exit, with a block of stone under it if the floor there is gone ^[5]. Going through it leads to the ending rather than another level ^[22]. In the clip, the player climbs out of the shaft on his ropes, runs along the hall and goes through the door ^[23].

• Touching Olmec does no harm: only a slam that lands on the player does. A player standing on top of him rides along ^{[24] [25]}.
• His yellow balls don't hurt the player, but each turns into a Bat, Spider, Snake, Frog or Fire Frog where it lands (Olmec's yellow balls), so the shaft fills with monsters as the fight goes on.
• Drifting left at half his top speed or more, Olmec passes over the player without stopping; drifting right, he stops at any speed (his hops and slams) ^[20].
• Bombs and weapons do nothing to Olmec ^[1].
• There's no time limit: the Ghost never comes to the lair ^[26].

• Staying under him after he stops. The slam comes 20 steps later and crushes the player outright. In the clip, a player who stands still is crushed with all four hearts ^[27].

• Standing anywhere but to his right when he's in the lava by the left wall. His hops don't drift him off the wall, and he stays in the lava without drowning (step 6). In one run, a player on a rope above him keeps him there through two hops ^[28].

• Standing where the floor under the door was. If a bomb has blown it out, the block of stone that appears there when Olmec dies crushes a player standing in its place (Olmec's damage) ^{[29] [28]}.