Lost sign messages

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.13 on 28 October 2026.

A sign in a custom level shows a message when the player walks past it, set in the level editor with E. The editor saves each level's exit labels and sign messages after its tiles. A level with no entrance and no exit has no labels to save, and then the file comes out in a shape the game reads differently: opened again, in the editor or from the menu, its signs have no message.

A level with one sign, which says HELLO, and neither an entrance nor an exit opens in the editor, which draws the message at the sign. The player saves it, past the warnings that it has no entrance and no exit, and opens it again: the sign is blank ^[1].

Saving, the editor writes how many exit labels there are, the labels, how many signs there are, and their messages. It only ends the labels' count with a line end if there are labels:

    file_text_write_string(file, string(exitNamesID));
    if (exitNamesID > 0) file_text_writeln(file);
    for (i = 0; i < exitNamesID; i += 1)
    {
        file_text_write_string(file, exitNames[i]);
        if (i < exitNamesID) file_text_writeln(file);
    }
    file_text_write_string(file, string(signNamesID));
    if (signNamesID > 0) file_text_writeln(file);
    for (i = 0; i < signNamesID; i += 1)
    {
        file_text_write_string(file, signNames[i]);
        if (i < signNamesID-1) file_text_writeln(file);
    }

Entrances and exits both count as labels. With neither, the sign count goes on the same line as the label count: 0 labels and 1 sign come out as 01, and 3 signs as 03. Reading the level back, the editor and the game read that line as that many labels, take the signs' messages for them, and find no sign count after them, so no sign gets a message ^{[2] [3] [4]}. A sign without one is blank ^[5]. The test button saves the level to play it the same way, with the same line ^[6]. With an entrance or an exit, every label is followed by a line end, as the reader expects.

Put a sign in a level with no entrance and no exit, give it a message, and save the level; then open it again or play it from the menu. It only happens to a level saved with neither, which can't be finished, so mostly to one still being built. In the clip's replay the sign says HELLO when the level opens on frame 226; the level is saved on 250, and when it opens again on 286, the sign's message is empty ^[7]. In another, the saved level is played from the menu, and its sign has no message there either ^[8].

The spelunky.ai port reproduces it exactly: it's in docs/quirks.md's list of the 1.1 source's bugs ^[4], and the oracle's fingerprints of the two replays pin the signs' messages. The files the replays save match the original's byte for byte. No option turns it off.