No hint hand after the title's opening

On the game's very first run, the title screen has a hint for the new player: a hand pointing at the START door, and PRESS UP TO ENTER! while the player stands under it. But it only appears when the title screen starts with the player already there, after the opening was skipped or on the way back from the high scores room. A player who watches the opening through gets no hint. It may be by design; the code doesn't say.

On a first run, the opening plays through and the player walks to the START door: no hand points at it, and no text shows. He goes into the high scores room and comes back out, and now the hand is over the START door, with PRESS UP TO ENTER! while he stands under it ^[1].

A run is a first run while the high scores table holds none of the game's own entries, as on the very first start, when the game writes its starting table ^[2]. That table doesn't pass the same test, so even resetting the high scores doesn't make another first run. The title screen's create event then makes the hand (oHintHand) in each of its ways of starting with the player already in the room, but not in the opening's:

if (global.titleStart == 0)
{
    darkness = 1;
    alarm[0] = 50;
    with oScreen { canPause = false; }
    //instance_create(280, -32, oPDummy4);
    //instance_create(280, 32, oFlare);
}
else if (global.titleStart == 1) // start at highscore door
{
    player = instance_create(432+8, 184, oPlayer1);
    player.facing = 19;
    instance_create(320+280, 188, oFlare);
    with oScreen { canPause = true; }
    playMusic(global.musTitle, true);
    if (global.firstTime) instance_create(384, 144, oHintHand);
}
else if (global.titleStart == 2) // start at rope
{
    player = instance_create(320+280, 184, oPlayer1);
    player.facing = 18;
    instance_create(320+280, 188, oFlare);
    with oScreen { canPause = true; }
    playMusic(global.musTitle, true);
    if (global.firstTime) instance_create(384, 144, oHintHand);
}

The opening ends with the Spelunker climbing down the rope and becoming the player, without the room starting again, so nothing makes the hand after it ^[3]. A key pressed during the opening starts the room again the second way, at the rope, which does make it ^[4]. The hand draws its text while the player is within 8 pixels of it ^[5]. The START door then takes a first run to the Tutorial and ends it, so the hand is gone for good ^[6].

Start the game for the very first time, with no high scores, watch the title's opening through and walk to the START door: there's no hand. Go into the SCORES door and back out, and the hand is there. The replay of the clip does both, then goes into the START door, to the Tutorial ^[7]. Another replay skips the opening with the attack key instead, and has the hand from the start ^[8].

The spelunky.ai port reproduces it exactly: it's in docs/quirks.md's list of the 1.1 source's oddities ^[6], and the oracle's fingerprints of the two replays pin when the hand is made. No option turns it off.