Crystal Skull

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.10 on 27 October 2026.

To the code it's a Golden Idol with a value of its own, three times the Golden Idol's, so the player carries it to the exit to cash it in and a Shopkeeper buys it, as he does an idol. It takes the Golden Idol's place on the Jungle's graveyard levels, and its trap is the Ghost, which comes for the player the moment he lifts it.

Its base value is $15,000, multiplied by the area's number, as an idol's is ^{[2] [3]}. Level generation only makes one in the Jungle, where it's worth $30,000:

Each Jungle level has a 1 in 10 chance of being a graveyard level, the Restless Dead ^[4]. On one, the Jungle's idol room (a 1 in 9 roll for two side rooms in three, once an altar's 1 in 12 fails, and one a level at most) holds the Crystal Skull instead of the Golden Idol ^[5]. The room is a tomb of temple stone with a small chamber in it: the skull in the middle, and four piles of bones that rise as Skeletons in the corners, the code's if (rand(1,2)) choosing between bones and a Jar for them, which is always true ^{[6] [7]}. In custom levels, it's the level editor's O tile ^[8].

It's heavy, carried and thrown as the Golden Idol is ^[9]. Lifting it on a graveyard level, when no Ghost is on the level yet, brings one: it appears just past the edge of the screen, halfway down, on the right if the player is in the right half of the level and on the left if not ^[10]. The Ghost drifts toward him through walls and kills him on touch whatever his hearts ^{[11] [12]}. In the clip, the player lifts the skull, the Ghost drifts in from the right, and it kills him ^{[13] [14]}.

Carried to the level's exit, it's taken from his hands and its value added to his money, and the screen between levels shows a crystal skull among the loot ^{[3] [15]}. Set down on a shop's floor near an idle Shopkeeper (the level's first), it's bought at its full value, as an idol is ^[16].

• Its type is "Gold Idol", the Golden Idol's, which is how it gets every idol rule ^[17]. The code that holds an idol at the player's height also names a "Crystal Skull" type, which nothing has ^[18].
• One sold to a Shopkeeper is counted among the level's golden idols, so the screen between levels shows a golden idol for it, where one carried to the exit shows as a crystal skull ^{[19] [20]}.