The Tunnel Man skips his first visit

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.13 on 28 October 2026.

The Tunnel Man digs the shortcuts, and waits for the player's money in the screen at the end of an area: after level 4 for the first. On a fresh install, the first player to get there finds the screen empty. Each shortcut is owed $1 more than its price at first, and the screen only takes that $1 off instead of showing him.

On a fresh install, the player takes the exit of level 4, the last of the Mines. The screen between levels tallies the loot, and nobody is there; X skips it, and the Jungle's first level loads ^[1].

What's owed on the shortcuts is kept in the high scores table, and a fresh table stores the first two $1 above their prices ^[2]. Paying off the level 9 shortcut does the same to the level 13 one ^[3]. The screen between levels makes the Tunnel Man only if what's owed is down to the price, and otherwise takes 1 off it:

if (global.tunnel1 > 0 and global.tunnel2 > 0 and isRoom("rTransition1x"))
{
    if (global.tunnel1 > global.tunnel1Max) global.tunnel1 -= 1;
    else instance_create(96+8, 176+8, oTunnelMan);
}

So the first visit to each of his three screens takes the $1 off and shows no one, and he first shows up on the next ^{[4] [5]}. What's owed goes back into the table when the game ends in a death or a win ^[6].

Start with a fresh high scores table (a new install) and reach the end of the Mines. It happens to every new player, once for each shortcut. The replay of the clip starts from a fresh table: the screen after level 4 loads on frame 4231, takes what the level 5 shortcut is owed from $100,001 to $100,000, and makes no Tunnel Man; level 5 loads on 4264 ^[7]. The screen after level 8 does the same for the level 9 shortcut ^[8], and the screen after level 12 for the level 13 one, once the level 9 one is paid off ^[9].

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 fingerprints of the replays pin each empty screen. No option turns it off.