The other rushing water message

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.12 on 28 October 2026.

A flooded level says "I CAN HEAR RUSHING WATER...", first, or after a graveyard's or a dark level's message. A level that's all three shows three messages, and the lake's, the last, comes from a timer of its own, which words it "YOU HEAR RUSHING WATER..." instead. Nothing else is different; only the wording gives the mix of levels away.

Level 8 of the Jungle is dark, a graveyard and flooded at once. After the dark level's message comes the graveyard's, "THE DEAD ARE RESTLESS!", and then the lake's, as "YOU HEAR RUSHING WATER..." ^[1].

The player's alarms show a level's messages, one after another. Alarm 0 shows the first: on a dark level the dark level's, which sets alarm 1 for the next ^[2], and on a flooded level that's nothing else, "I CAN HEAR RUSHING WATER..." ^[3]. Alarm 1 shows the second, and only its graveyard branch, which needs the level to be dark too, sets a timer for a third:

else if (global.cemetary and global.darkLevel)
{
    global.message = "THE DEAD ARE RESTLESS!";
    global.message2 = "";
    global.messageTimer = 200;
    if (global.lake) alarm[4] = 210;
}
else if (global.lake)
{
    global.message = "I CAN HEAR RUSHING WATER...";
    global.message2 = "";
    global.messageTimer = 200;
}

That timer is alarm 4, which has the lake's message in other words:

if (global.lake)
{
    global.message = "YOU HEAR RUSHING WATER...";
    global.message2 = "";
    global.messageTimer = 200;
}

A dark flooded level without the graveyard gets the lake's message from alarm 1, and a lit flooded graveyard, whose message alarm 0 shows, gets it from alarm 1 too ^[4]: both say "I CAN HEAR". Only a level that's all three reaches alarm 4 ^[5].

It takes a Jungle level that wins three separate rolls. The lake is 1 in 10, rolled for levels 5 to 8 entered from the screen between levels, and never again once the player has gone through the Black Market's door ^[6]; the graveyard is 1 in 10, and the dark level 1 in 12, but only while the area has had none and the level before's clock read more than 20 seconds past the minute ^[7]. So at most 1 such level in 1,200 says it, and fewer for the dark roll's conditions ^[5]. The replay, with seed 10, waits at level 7's exit until level 8 comes up all three: the dark level's message shows, then the graveyard's 209 steps later, then "YOU HEAR RUSHING WATER..." another 209 steps later, and "I CAN HEAR RUSHING WATER..." never does ^[8].

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 fingerprint of the replay pins each message and the step it shows on. No option turns it off.