Parachute

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

Wearing one, the player doesn't have to do anything: on a fall long enough to hurt, it opens over him, and he floats down slowly enough to land unhurt. It works once, and then it's gone. General Stores sell it, and Crates and buried blocks give it away. It isn't worn for good: the player carries it from the moment it's picked up or paid for until it opens.

Picking up a free parachute, paying for one or carrying one out of a shop takes it: the message "YOU GOT A PARACHUTE! IT WILL DEPLOY AUTOMATICALLY." shows, the pack disappears, and an icon of it joins the row under the hearts ^{[3] [4]}. A new game takes it away if it's still unopened ^{[5] [6]}.

It opens when the player has been falling for 15 steps (half a second), isn't stunned, and has nothing solid 32 pixels below him. Opening uses it up: the icon goes, and a new fall needs a new parachute ^[7]. A fall that long would otherwise end badly: landing after more than 16 steps of falling stuns the player and costs him 1 heart, after more than 32 steps 2, and after more than 48 steps 10 ^[8].

While it's open, it hangs over the player and follows him ^[9], his falling speed is halved each step ^[10], and the count of steps he's been falling starts again from 0 on every step, so the landing never hurts ^[11]. With gravity adding 1 pixel a step and the parachute halving the total, he settles at 1 pixel a step (30 per second), against up to 10 in a free fall ^[12]. The clip shows him running off a ledge at the top of a deep drop: after 15 steps the parachute opens, he slows from 10 pixels a step to 1, and he lands without losing a heart ^[13].

The parachute comes off when the fall ends: when the player lands, grabs a ledge or a rope, or climbs, and when he's stunned or killed ^{[14] [15]}. It drops away as a limp canopy, which falls until it lands ^[16].

A General Store stocks as many as its rolls give: unlike the rarer wares, the parachute has no check for one already on the level ^[20]. Shops add 10% of the base price for each level past the second ^[21]. Shops are made from level 2 on ^[22], and level 16, Olmec's Lair, has none:

Every block of rock away from the level's edges that isn't gold and holds no gem has a 1 in 1200 chance of hiding an item, one of nineteen at random ^{[23] [19]}. Kali never gives one, and the Dice House never offers one. In custom levels, it's the level editor's tile ` ^[24].

Carrying one out of a shop without paying takes it and angers the Shopkeeper, as with any ware; whether it's taken at once depends on whether the player or the parachute leaves the shop first ^{[25] [26]}.

• A second parachute adds nothing: the player has one or none, and picking up another while he has one only sets it again, though shops go on selling them to him ^{[27] [25]}.
• An item touching the open parachute while it moves right or down tears it away, and the player falls freely again; one moving left or up doesn't ^[28].
• The Cape slows a fall the same way, halving it each step, but it lasts and is opened by hand ^[29].

• A parachute only opens with 32 pixels of open air below the player, so it saves him on a deep drop, not on a short one onto a ledge.
• Its one use goes on the first long fall, wanted or not: dropping down a shaft spends it.

• Its type is "Parachute", and its shop message the plain "A PARACHUTE FOR $2000." ^[30].
• The parachute shown open over the player and the spent one that falls away are objects of their own: oParachute, and oParaUsed, which falls a fifth of a pixel a step faster each step ^[31].