Vampire

Verified against the spelunky.ai port v0.1.10 on 27 October 2026.

Vampires are rare even on the graveyard levels of the Jungle, the only levels whose generation makes them. A Vampire walks and charges like a Caveman, and turns into a bat to fly up to the player. It has 6 hit points, most single hits only stun it, and the blood its bites draw heals it. A dead Vampire leaves a Cape.

On foot. A Vampire wanders like a Caveman: it walks a random way, turning around at walls, and stops to stand for 20–50 steps (0.67–1.67 seconds) with a 1 in 100 chance each step and at the edge of a ledge ^[5]. Its code sets its walk to 1.5 pixels per step, but friction takes 0.1 off before it moves, so in play it covers 4 pixels every 3 steps (40 per second) ^{[6] [7] [8]}. Standing beside a wall, it hops ^[9].

Charging. When the player comes within 96 pixels, a standing Vampire turns to face him and charges; a walking one charges the way it's walking, whichever way that is ^{[10] [11]}. It runs at 4 pixels per step (120 per second). At a wall it jumps, or turns around if there's a ceiling over it, and at the edge of a ledge it jumps, 3–6 pixels per step up ^{[12] [13]}. In the air after a jump it may turn into a bat (1 in 100 each step, or at once over water); when it lands, it stands for 40–100 steps (1.33–3.33 seconds) ^[14].

As a bat. A charging Vampire turns into a bat when the player is above it and less than 32 pixels away across, unless it's in water ^[15]. As a bat it flies at the player at 2 pixels per step (60 per second) while he's within 160 pixels, never down into water; farther away, or while he's swimming or dead, it flies up to a ceiling and hangs, like a Bat, until he's within 90 pixels and more than 16 below it ^[16]. As soon as the bat touches the ground or water, it's a Vampire on foot again ^[17]. The clip shows a Vampire charging at the player on a ledge above it, turning into a bat beneath him, and flying up to bite him.

A Vampire only acts while it's on screen or just off it ^[18].

When the player touches a Vampire that isn't stunned, within 8 pixels of its middle across and without stomping it, he loses 1 heart, is knocked away from it (and upward, if he's above it), and blinks, invincible, for 30 steps (1 second) ^{[19] [20]}.

Each bite also puts a drop of blood where the player is, and any drop of blood that touches a Vampire is absorbed and heals it 1 hit point, with no limit ^{[21] [22]}. A bite's blood usually lands on the Vampire that bit: in the attack clip, two bites take the player's hearts from 4 to 2 and heal the Vampire from 6 to 8 ^[8].

Most hits stun a Vampire as well as hurting it, as they do a Caveman: it's knocked back and lies on the ground for 60 steps (2 seconds), counted down while it's on the ground or carried, and then gets up if it has hit points left ^[23]. A Vampire bleeds no blood of its own, so the Whip's hits don't heal it ^{[24] [25]}. The clip shows the Whip stunning a charging Vampire, which gets up, charges again and bites the player, and the blood puts back the hit point the Whip took.

A Vampire whose hit points run out dies at once, or, if it's stunned, once it comes to rest ^{[37] [38]}. It leaves no body: it falls apart into three bones and a Skull, and leaves a Cape, free to pick up ^[39]. The clip shows a Bomb landing beside a Vampire the Whip has just stunned; the explosion flings it away, and where it comes to rest it dies and leaves its Cape. Vampires killed count toward the player's kills, and the screen between levels draws a Vampire icon for each ^{[40] [41]}. One that Spikes, Lava or a Spear Trap killed doesn't count ^{[42] [43] [44]}.

A stunned Vampire can be picked up and thrown, and one left lying still on Kali's altar for 20 steps is sacrificed, adding 1 to her favour, unless it's already −8 or less ^{[45] [46]}. One that gets up in the player's hands drops out of them ^[47].

Level generation makes Vampires only on graveyard levels, which 1 in 10 levels of the Jungle is ^{[48] [49]}. On top of each block with open space above it (no block, monster or Spikes there), outside the starting room and shops, a graveyard level makes a Zombie with a 1 in 25 chance, or failing that a Vampire with a 1 in 160 chance ^[50].

Vampires also appear in:

• The Sun Room, the minigame behind the door the high-score room shows once the best money score is $200,000 or more. The player scores a point a second, and every 100–200 steps a lit Bomb drops in, or, from 50 points, a Vampire already in bat form (from 80, the Ghost comes instead) ^{[51] [52] [53] [54]}.
• Custom levels, as the level editor's tile A ^[55].

• A Vampire turns into a bat when the player is above it, so a ledge doesn't keep the player out of reach.
• With the Whip alone it takes six hits, each after it gets back up, and each bite in between undoes one. A Bomb or two bullets kill it outright, and an arrow takes 4 hit points.
• A stunned Vampire can be carried and thrown at another monster, or sacrificed to Kali.
• Killing a Vampire is a way to get a Cape for nothing.

• The game's code marks the arrow's extra damage:

  // vampires are weak to "stakes"
  if (type == "Arrow" and obj.status != 98 and obj.type == "Vampire") obj.hp -= 3;

• The Vampire's touch code tallies no deaths, so a Vampire that takes the player's last heart isn't counted, and the Vampire row of the deaths-by-enemy table the game writes to stats.txt always reads ??? with 0 deaths ^{[2] [56]}.

• Its code names a throwing state (THROW), as the Shopkeeper's and the Hawkman's do, but nothing ever sets a Vampire's to it ^{[57] [58] [59]}.