Black Market

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

The Black Market is a level of the Jungle given over to shops: five that sell items, a Dice House and the Ankh shop, each with its Shopkeeper, laid out the same way every time. The way in is a door hidden inside a block, which the Udjat Eye helps to find. Making the market has lasting effects: no level has a shop after it, and no Jungle level after it is flooded.

Once a game, one of the Jungle's levels 5 to 7 hides the market's door: level 5 one time in 3, level 6 one time in 2, and otherwise level 7 ^[2]. Generation puts it inside the first block, outside the shops, that has a block under it (that one made indestructible) and wins a roll of 1 in a number that starts each game at 160 and falls by one with each block that loses. The block it's in can't be a tree or one that can't be destroyed, and the block under it can't be an altar ^{[4] [5]}. The door is inside the rock, so it has to be dug or bombed out. On its level, the Udjat Eye blinks and beeps faster the nearer the player is to it.

Walking into the door, as into an exit, makes the next level, 6, 7 or 8, the Black Market ^{[6] [7]}. In the first clip, a bomb blows open the rock hiding the door on level 5; the player walks into it, and level 6, the Black Market, loads with the message "WELCOME TO THE BLACK MARKET!" ^{[8] [9]}.

The market has no path of its own to find: its rooms are set, a grid of four by four with the entrance in the top left and the exit in the bottom right ^[1]. Columns are from the left, rows from the top:

The rooms around the shops are the Jungle's earth, with water, vines, Spikes and trees in some of the layouts ^{[20] [21]}. In the second clip, the player leaves Wang's Clothing Shop, climbs down to the bottom row, and walks along it under the Dice House to the exit ^[22].

The market is never a dark level, though a dark roll that comes up on it uses up the Jungle's dark level all the same ^{[23] [17] [24]}. It's never a flooded level: taking its door stops the roll for one, for the market's level and every Jungle level after it ^{[25] [17]}. The roll for a graveyard level, 1 in 10, is made for it, as for every Jungle level ^[26]. A graveyard market's monsters are the graveyard's, but its message is still only the market's ^{[27] [28]}.

Each of the seven shops has its Shopkeeper ^[29]. Outside the shops, level generation makes the Jungle's monsters, as on any Jungle level ^[30]:

The Mantrap's rule is the market's own, and the code's comment gives its reason: "to prevent mantraps from spawning near shopkeepers in black market" ^[40]. On a graveyard market, Zombies and Vampires take the ground's place and Dead Fish the Piranhas' ^{[41] [42]}. As it's never dark, it has no Scarabs. The Ghost comes to a player who stays too long, as on every level ^[43].

• The Shopkeepers. Seven, close together: a lit bomb in one shop angers every one of them, and those off screen again on every step it burns ^{[17] [44]}. The General Store has what else angers them.
• Spear Traps, made outside the shops as in the Jungle ^[45].
• Spikes, along the floor of one of the bottom row's layouts ^{[46] [47]}.
• Water, where Piranhas swim.

So a market has one shop of each kind, as a rule. One market in five, the fifth item shop finds the last kind left and is made a General Store all the same, so the market has two General Stores and none of the kind left (unless that's the General Store) ^{[17] [51]}. The wares are the shops' usual ones, priced by the level the market is on, as in any shop ^[52] (the General Store's prices); the Ankh, never marked for sale, can be thrown out of its shop and picked up outside at its price ^{[17] [53]}.

Once the Black Market has been made, no level has a shop for the rest of the game: the roll for one, on every later level, requires that it hasn't ^{[54] [17]}.

Treasure is scattered over the blocks outside the shops as in the Mines ^[55], and the earth hides gems and items as the Jungle's does ^[56].

• The Ankh, which no other shop sells.
• The door itself, which the Udjat Eye finds.

• The market's level code sets its rooms and returns before the rest of the level code runs, the shop roll among it, which is why that roll's check for the market does nothing on the market's own level ^{[1] [54]}.
• The door's object is a kind of exit, named "Market Exit" ^[57].
• The market's room script has code for an idol, trap blocks and a cemetery's bones, copied from the Jungle's, but none of its rooms has those tiles ^{[58] [59] [17]}.