Snake

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.7 on 27 October 2026.

Level generation can put a Snake on top of almost any block in the Mines, and a Snake pit holds several more; elsewhere, Snakes come out of Jars. A Snake doesn't chase the player: it patrols the ground it's on and bites him on contact. With 1 hit point, it dies to any damage, whether from the Whip, a stomp or a thrown Rock.

A Snake walks along the ground at 1 pixel per step (30 per second). It turns around when it walks into a wall or reaches the edge of a ledge, so it never walks off one ^[5]. Where it has a wall or a drop on both sides, as on a platform one block wide, it stands still ^[6].

While walking, it has a 1 in 100 chance each step of stopping for 20–50 steps (0.67–1.67 seconds). When the pause ends, it sets off in a random direction ^[7], as a new Snake does on its first step ^[8]. Its animation runs at half speed while it stands still ^[9].

A Snake only acts while it's on screen or less than 4 pixels off it: its whole step event is inside that check ^[10].

When the player touches a Snake without stomping it, he loses 1 heart, is knocked away from it, and blinks, invincible, for 30 steps (1 second), so the Snake can't bite again straight away ^[11]. This is the touch code the Snake inherits from the parent object most monsters share; the Snake has no attack of its own (Trivia). The clip shows a bite taking the player from four hearts to three.

A Snake has 1 hit point, so any damage kills it ^[12]:

The first clip shows a stomp: the player drops onto a Snake from the ledge above and it dies as he lands. The second shows a thrown Rock killing one from a ledge.

Snakes killed count toward the player's kills, and the screen between levels draws a Snake icon for each ^{[23] [24]}. A Snake that Spikes, Lava or a Spear Trap killed doesn't count, which the code explains as "sometimes it's not the player's fault!" ^{[25] [26] [27] [28]}, and one that lava covers is removed without dying, so it isn't counted either ^[21].

Level generation makes Snakes only in the Mines, levels 1–4 ^[29]:

• On the ground. Each solid block with open space above it has a 1 in 60 chance of a Snake on top, except in the starting room and in shops ^{[30] [31]}.
• In a Snake pit. A Mines level may have one snake pit, a shaft of rooms off the main path, with a 1 in 8 chance for each place one fits ^{[32] [33]}. Each snake tile in its middle rooms holds a Snake with a 1 in 10 chance, and its bottom room is built with five Snakes and two Big Rubies ^{[34] [35]}. Such a level opens with the message "I HEAR SNAKES... I HATE SNAKES!", after "I CAN'T SEE A THING!" on a dark level ^{[36] [37]}.

Snakes also appear wherever these are:

• Jars. A broken Jar makes a Snake with a 1 in 12 chance once its rolls for gold, gems and a Spider have all failed ^{[38] [39]}.
• Olmec's yellow balls, which turn into a Bat, Spider, Snake, Frog or Fire Frog when they hit the ground ^[40].
• The Tutorial, which has one ^[41].
• Custom levels, as the level editor's tile n ^[42].

• A Snake never walks off a ledge, so one on a platform stays on it, and one on a platform one block wide never moves.
• After a bite, the player is invincible for 1 second, during which touching the Snake again costs nothing.
• A Snake off screen doesn't move, so one is still where it was when it left the screen.

• The Snake's code defines an attack state, but nothing in it ever enters that state, and its branch holds only a question mark:

  else if (status == ATTACK)
  {
      // ?
  }

• A commented-out block at the end of its step event would switch to a right-facing sprite, sSnakeWalkR, which the game doesn't have. The Snake uses its left-facing sprite both ways, mirrored when it faces right ^{[43] [44]}.