Messages halved on lit levels

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

Messages like "I HEAR SNAKES... I HATE SNAKES!" or "A COMPASS FOR $5400." appear at the bottom of the screen for a set number of steps, 200 for a special level's. That's how long they last on a dark level. On every other level, they last half as long, as two pieces of code each take a step off the timer, so a special level's message is gone in about three seconds.

Level 4 of the Mines is a snake pit, and lit. Its message, "I HEAR SNAKES... I HATE SNAKES!", is gone after 100 steps ^[1].

On level 2, which is dark, the dark level's message lasts the full 200 ^[2].

oScreen draws the message on every level while the game isn't paused, and takes a step off its timer as it does ^{[3] [4]}. The level's own drawing, in oLevel, draws the same message again, and takes another step off, but only on a lit level:

if (not global.darkLevel and global.messageTimer > 0)
{
    draw_set_font(global.myFontSmall);
    draw_set_color(c_white);
    strLen = string_length(global.message)*8;
    n = 320 - strLen;
    n = ceil(n / 2);
    draw_text(view_xview[0]+n, view_yview[0]+216, string(global.message));
    
    if (not isLevel("rTutorial")) draw_set_color(c_yellow);
    strLen = string_length(global.message2)*8;
    n = 320 - strLen;
    n = ceil(n / 2);
    draw_text(view_xview[0]+n, view_yview[0]+224, string(global.message2));
    
    global.messageTimer -= 1;
}

So on a lit level the timer goes down by 2 a step, and a message set to 200 lasts 100 steps ^[5]. Every message sets the same timer, to 200 for a special level's or the Ghost's warning, 120 for an item picked up ^[6], and less for others, and every one lasts half its time on a lit level. A tutorial sign's is set to 200 again on every step the player touches the sign, so it only starts counting down once he leaves it ^[7]. A special level's second message comes 209 steps after the first ^[8], which leaves a gap of about 109 steps with no message on a lit level, and 9 on a dark one.

Every message on a lit level shows it. The replay of the clips plays the Mines' first four levels: level 2 is dark, and its message, set to 200 on frame 1730, lasts until 1930; level 4 is a lit snake pit, and its message, set on 3651, is gone on 3751 ^[9]. A lit graveyard's message lasts 100 steps the same way ^[10], and a dark one's three messages 200 steps each ^[11].

The spelunky.ai port reproduces it exactly: it's in docs/quirks.md's list of the 1.1 source's bugs ^[5], and the oracle's fingerprints of the replays pin both timers. No option turns it off.