Ruby

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

It's one of the three small gems a Chest holds, with the Emerald and the Sapphire: worth twice an Emerald and as much as a Sapphire. Like every gem, it can't be collected until a moment after it appears; then the player collects it by touching it.

A Ruby's base value is $400, and it's worth a quarter of that more for each area past the Mines, the code counting Olmec's Lair as an area of its own ^{[3] [4]}:

Rubies come only out of Chests. Opened, a Chest that isn't a trap spills 3–4 small gems, each an Emerald, a Sapphire or a Ruby, one chance in three ^[2]; one Chest in twelve, outside the Tutorial, holds a lit Bomb instead ^[5]. Nothing else in the game makes one: level generation, the monsters and the level editor make only the big gems ^[6].

A new Ruby can't be collected: the code all treasure shares starts it uncollectable, and the gem's own alarm makes it collectable 20 steps (0.67 seconds) after it appears ^{[7] [8] [9]}. Gold out of the rock has no such wait ^[10]. After that, the player collects it by touching it while he isn't stunned or dead ^[11].

He takes one treasure a step, the one nearest him, and only if that one can be collected ^[12]. So a gem fresh out of a Chest that lies nearer him than another treasure he touches holds the other back too, until its wait is over: the same nearest pick as the nearest-enemy hits ^[13].

In the clip, a Chest opens into an Emerald, a Sapphire and two Rubies at the player's feet. He stands among them, collecting nothing, for 20 steps; then he takes one a step, a Ruby, the Sapphire, the other Ruby and last the Emerald ^[14].

Its value shows under his money and is counted into it after a short pause; whatever is left is counted at once when he leaves the level ^{[15] [16]}. A gem plays its own sound, where gold plays the coin's ^[17], and the screen between levels shows each Ruby collected on the level ^[18].

A loose Ruby falls and comes to rest like other treasure, moving only while it's on the screen; a Web it falls into holds it, and lava it sinks into destroys it ^{[19] [20]}.

• Each kind of gem collected is counted in a tally of its own (global.rubies for the Ruby), which only the screen between levels reads, counting it back down as it draws the level's loot ^{[21] [22]}.