Phantom Jar

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.10 on 28 October 2026.

The player's hands and the item he's holding are two things to the game: the instance in his hands, and the kind of item it remembers he's holding, which the HUD shows and the item key gives back. A bullet that breaks a held Jar or Skull clears the first and, through a typo, not the second, so a new one comes back.

An angry Shopkeeper's shot breaks the Jar the player is holding. His hands are empty, but the Jar stays on the HUD, and switching items gives him a Bomb, a Rope, and then a brand-new Jar ^[1].

A bullet's collision with a Jar only destroys it ^[2]. The Jar's destroy event then breaks it, and, if the player held it, empties his hands ^[3]:

    if (held)
    {
        oPlayer1.holdItem = 0;
        oPlayer1.pickupItem = "";
    }

The variable the player's code reads for the kind of item he holds is pickupItemType; pickupItem is a new variable that nothing reads. The Jar's whip code, which breaks a held Jar its own way, clears the right one ^[4]. The Skull's destroy event has the same typo ^[5].

So after the shot, pickupItemType is still "Jar": the HUD draws a Jar in the held item's box ^[6], and the code that gives back the remembered item makes a new one. The item key does, after a bomb and a rope, as it puts the rope away ^[7], and so does losing a bomb or a rope from his hands, by being stunned, killed or knocked ^[8].

Carry a Jar or a Skull where an angry Shopkeeper's Shotgun can hit it. Once a pellet breaks it, press the item key until a Jar comes round. The replay of the clip's staged scene pins it: the shot breaks the Jar, pickupItemType stays "Jar", and the item key gives a bomb, a rope and a new Jar ^[9].

The spelunky.ai port reproduces it exactly: it's in docs/quirks.md's list of the 1.1 source's bugs ^[8], and the oracle's fingerprint of the replay pins the Jar's return. The Skull's version is read in the code and not yet in a replay. No option turns it off.