Dead Fish

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

On a graveyard level of the Jungle, the water holds Dead Fish where other levels have Piranhas. A Dead Fish leaves a player on dry land alone, but once he's swimming near it, it swims straight at him and bites. Its code is a copy of the Piranha's, less its hunting of other monsters and its bubbles, plus a check for being on screen. With 1 hit point, it dies to any damage, and falls apart into three bones.

A Dead Fish swims back and forth at 1 pixel per step, turning around where the water ends or a wall is in its way ^[5]. It always starts out heading right ^[6].

When the player is swimming within 90 pixels of it, it attacks: it swims straight at him at 1 pixel per step (30 per second), its heading wobbling by a degree each step, and moves only while the way ahead is water ^{[7] [8]}. The game moves it in whole pixels on each axis, so on a diagonal it covers 1 pixel across and 1 up or down in a step ^[9]. When he leaves the water or its range, it stops for 20–40 steps (0.67–1.33 seconds) and then patrols again, heading left or right at random ^{[10] [11]}. The clip shows a Dead Fish swimming at the player in a graveyard level's pool, biting him, and the Whip breaking it up.

Unlike a Piranha, a Dead Fish doesn't hunt other monsters in the water, and lets off no bubbles ^{[12] [13]}.

Out of the water. A Dead Fish whose middle isn't in water turns into a Fish Bone at once ^[14].

Off screen. A Dead Fish does nothing at all unless it's on screen, or less than 16 pixels off its left or top edge: it doesn't move, and even one killed or out of the water there only falls apart or turns into a Fish Bone once it's back on screen ^[15]. A Piranha has no such check, and swims on out of sight.

When the player touches a Dead Fish without stomping it, he loses 1 heart, is knocked away from it, and blinks, invincible, for 30 steps (1 second) ^[16]. This is the touch code most monsters share. Unlike a Piranha's, its bite draws no blood ^{[17] [18]}. The bite clip shows a bite taking the player from four hearts to three.

A Dead Fish has 1 hit point, so any damage kills it ^[19]:

The Dead Fish's own step event replaces the one most monsters share, which is where Spikes, Lava and Spear Traps hurt them, so none of those harm a Dead Fish ^[27].

A swimming player can't stomp it, but one dropping into the water lands on it before he's swimming, and that is a stomp. The clip shows the player dropping into a pool onto a Dead Fish, which falls apart.

A Dead Fish that dies falls apart into three bones ^[28]. Dead Fish killed count toward the player's kills, and the screen between levels draws a Dead Fish icon for each; in the kills table the game writes to stats.txt, which has no row for them, they're added to the Piranha's row ^{[29] [30] [31]}. One that turns into a Fish Bone out of the water isn't killed, so it isn't counted.

Level generation makes Dead Fish only on graveyard levels, which 1 in 10 levels of the Jungle is ^{[32] [33]}. Each water block with no solid block in it has a 1 in 30 chance of a monster, which on a graveyard level is a Dead Fish and on any other Jungle level a Piranha ^[34].

The level editor has no tile for a Dead Fish, so custom levels can't have them.

• A Dead Fish only chases a swimming player, so one crossing above the water isn't chased.
• Dropping into the water right onto a Dead Fish stomps it.
• A Dead Fish freezes as soon as it's off screen, so one left behind stays where it was, and one killed off screen falls apart only when it's seen again.

• The Dead Fish's code never sets its type string, so it keeps the parent object's "None" ^[35]. A Dead Fish that takes the player's last heart isn't counted in the deaths-by-enemy table the game writes to stats.txt, under the Piranha or anywhere else ^[36].
• Unlike the Piranha's, its code starts an attack without checking that the player is alive, so near a dead swimming player it keeps starting attacks and giving them up the next step ^{[7] [37] [38]}.