Big Sapphire

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

It's the middle one of the three big gems, worth more than a Big Emerald and less than a Big Ruby, and three times a small Sapphire. In the rock it's the commonest of them, as each block rolls for it first. The player collects one by touching it; a Ghost that touches one turns it into a Diamond.

A Big Sapphire's base value is $1,200, and it's worth a quarter of that more for each area past the Mines, the code counting Olmec's Lair as an area of its own ^{[2] [3]}:

Each block of rock that isn't a gold vein (71 in 100 aren't) and isn't on the level's edge rolls for a big gem inside it, the Big Sapphire first:

The Tutorial's bricks roll as the Mines' do ^[8]. In the Temple, one block of rock in 100 is the Jungle's earth, which rolls at the Jungle's odds, and one in ten a stone block, which holds no gem ^{[9] [10]}. The City of Gold's temple blocks are gold instead, and don't roll for gems ^[11], but its blocks of earth still do ^[12]. A buried gem stays where it is, hidden behind the rock, until the block around it is destroyed, by a Bomb or a Mattock for instance; then it drops out. With the Spectacles or the Udjat Eye, treasure is drawn in front of the rock, so the buried gems show through it ^[13].

In the clip, the player picks up a pair of Spectacles in a cave of bricks, and a Big Sapphire buried in the floor ahead shows through. He sets a Bomb on the floor above it and runs back; the explosion breaks the floor, and he drops into the hole and collects the gem ^[14].

Level generation gives each block outside a shop with open space above it, away from the entrance, the exit and a Golden Idol, a roll for what lies on it, in every area, once its rolls for a Rock (1 in 100) and a Jar (1 in 40) fail ^[15]. A big gem comes late in it:

On a Mines level that's still to place the Udjat Eye's locked chest, a nook that gets no web rolls for the chest and nothing else ^[21]. On a level with the chest, level generation then turns one treasure that isn't inside rock, picked at random, into the chest's key ^{[22] [12]}. The Tutorial has one lying on a high ledge ^[23], and the level editor's 6 tile is one ^[24].

The player collects a Big Sapphire by touching it while he isn't stunned or dead; the one he takes is the treasure nearest him, one a step ^[32]. It's made uncollectable, and its own alarm, set to 20 steps (0.67 seconds) when it's made, makes it collectable ^{[33] [34]}, so one fresh out of a Jar, a Chest or a monster lies a moment before the player can take it.

Its value shows under his money and is counted into it after a short pause; whatever is left is counted at once when he leaves the level ^{[35] [36]}. A gem plays its own sound, where gold plays the coin's ^[37], and the screen between levels shows each Big Sapphire collected on the level ^[38].

A loose one falls and comes to rest like other treasure, moving only while it's on the screen; a Web it falls into holds it, and lava it sinks into destroys it ^{[39] [40]}.

A Ghost that touches a Big Sapphire turns it into a Diamond, in the same place ^[41]. The Ghost drifts through walls, so it does this to gems still buried in the rock too ^{[42] [12]}. In the clip, a Ghost drifting toward the player passes over a Big Sapphire lying in a nook, and the sapphire becomes a Diamond ^[43].

• Only the three big gems have code for a Ghost's touch, so a Ghost passes over the small gems, gold and a Diamond and leaves them as they are ^[41].