Stomping

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

A stomp is the player's attack without a weapon, and one of the few that scales: a monster with several hit points, such as a Caveman, survives a hop onto it but not a fall from high above. It also ends the fall, so the drop that would have stunned the player costs him nothing. Most monsters share the code for it, and a few have their own, with other rules.

The stomp is part of a monster's touch: the code most monsters share (oEnemy's collision with the player) decides between a stomp and a bite ^[1].

1. Close enough. Nothing happens unless the player's middle is within 12 pixels, across, of the monster's ^[2].
2. From above. It's a stomp if the player is alive, not swimming, jumping or falling, and his middle is above a point 8 pixels below the monster's top. Otherwise the monster bites, if he isn't invincible (Damage and stun) ^{[3] [4]}.
3. The hit. The monster loses 1 hit point, plus 1 for every whole 16 steps the player has been falling, and three times that if he wears Spike Shoes, which draw blood as well ^[5]. His step counts the falling steps, adding 1 on every step he moves down (fallTimer) ^[6].
4. The bounce. He's sent up at 6 pixels per step, plus a fifth of his falling speed, and his count of falling steps starts again, so the landing that ends the bounce isn't a long drop ^{[7] [8]}.

The monster's own step kills it once its hit points are gone; the stomp only takes them ^[9]. A stomp while the player is still rising counts too, since jumping is enough, so jumping up into a Bat from just below it kills it ^{[10] [11]}.

A monster with a touch of its own has its own stomp, with its own reach and damage. Each is cited on its page; in short:

The reach is how far the player's middle may be from the monster's middle across, and how far below the monster's top it must be above:

Damage of a stomp by how many steps the player fell, for most monsters and for those that round up (the Yeti, the Yeti King and the Shopkeeper) ^{[5] [26]}:

The player falls 1 pixel a step faster each step, up to 10 pixels a step ^[27], so from a standing start 16 steps of falling are about seven blocks, and 32 about seventeen.

• From a height. The player walks off a high ledge and lands on a Caveman after 33 steps of falling: the stomp takes 3 hit points, all of its 3, and he bounces off it with his 4 hearts, where the same drop to the floor would have cost him 2 ^[28].
• On the 16th step. Landing on a Yeti on the 16th step of falling takes 1 of its hit points, where the same drop onto a Caveman takes 2 ^[29].
• With Spike Shoes. A stomp from a short drop takes 3 hit points, three times a plain one's 1, so a Caveman with 2 left dies ^[30].

• A stomp doesn't need the player to be falling. Jumping is enough, so a monster he jumps up into from just below is stomped, and he bounces off its underside ^{[10] [11]}.
• Stomping a Yeti, the Yeti King or a Shopkeeper on the way up takes nothing, as their stomps round the steps of falling up where the others' add 1: a Yeti is stunned all the same ^{[10] [31]}.