2. Items

[Iron Blue Arremer]

2. Items

2.1. Pickups

Treasure: One of the most common pickups and found throughout all of the areas. You can pick up gold and gems.

When lying around in a stage, treasure comes in 2 forms - gold bars and gems.
Gold bars will be either appear alone or in a pile of 3. Each of the bars is worth 500$ (so a pile of 3 will be worth 1500$).

Gems come in the green, blue and red variety. Emeralds are worth 800$, Sapphires are worth 1200$ and Rubies are worth 1600$.

When breaking treasure chests, you might also find small versions of these gems, with tiny emeralds worth 200$, tiny sapphires worth 300$ and tiny rubies worth 400$.

Pots may contain gold nuggets, which vary in worth depending on their size - there's nuggets worth 100$, some are worth 500$, and some are worth 1000$.

The amounts given here are all for the Mines. Once you get to the Jungle, the value will increase in ~30%. When you get to the Ice Caves, the value for that will increase by ~30% again, etc.

When you look at the walls in stages, you will notice some areas with gold in them. Use a bomb or mattock to break them in order to get an amount of gold that corresponds with the size of the gold inside the block. Additionally, when you pick up the Spectacles or the Udjat Eye, you will also be able to see gems inside the walls.

Crates: Crates will contain useful items if you break them with a weapon. It's always worth a rope or a bomb to get to a crate, usually they give rope piles (3 ropes), bomb bags (3 bombs), but also can give you other items, including bomb boxes (12 bombs), a Shotgun, or the elusive Plasma Gun.

Treasure Chests: As mentioned before, these contain a random amount of money. You can pick them up and use them as projectile. After breaking them, they leave behind some rubbish which you also can pick up and throw.

Somewhere in the Mines, you will find a treasure chest with a golden lock. This box contains the Udjat Eye. In the same stage there must be a Golden Key you can use to unlock the box and pick up the Udjat Eye. The box and key, too, can be used as projectile.

Pots: Scattered all across levels, you can break them with your whip or pick them up and throw them. They will shatter as soon as they hit an obstacle or get hit by a projectile or enemy. They can contain random things. Most of the time it's empty, but sometimes you will find gold in them - and sometimes you will find an enemy in them. It will always be either a spider, a snake, a cobra or a scorpion. Thus it is always advisable to throw the pots instead of whipping them.

Skulls: They act like pots in that they immediately break. However, always approach them from jumping on top of them or whip them, as they can be skeletons trying to hit you.

Tiny Animals: Each of the areas has small animals running around. In the Mines its rats, in the Jungle its tiny frogs, in the Ice Caves its penguins and in the Temple its grasshoppers. While you can't use them as weapons, they do set off arrow traps, so if you can't find anything else, you can use these creatures to trigger the traps for you.

Rocks: You will find these in almost every area. Those are the most resilient and reliable throwing items you can find, so ditch your skulls and pots for these if you can.

Arrows and Arrow Shafts: Arrows only appear after an arrow trap shot them. They do a whopping 2 damage to any creature (you, damsels or enemies alike). Once they hit a body, they will lose their tip. These now can not be used anymore as weapons, but they still can trigger arrow traps, so it's good to have one handy.

Unconscious and Dead Bodies: If an enemy is knocked unconscious or dead, you can pick him up and throw him. However, when they're KO, they will wake up after a few seconds. The difference is easy to spot - knocked out bodies have birds swirling above their heads.

[Iron Blue Arremer]

2.2. Damsels

In each stage, there will be a damsel hidden somewhere. They can be right on your way, hidden behind some walls or somewhere really hard to reach. You can change the appearance of your damsels to be a woman, a man, a pug or a random selection of each of them.

If you carry a damsel to the end of the stage, you rescued it, and when completing the level yourself, you will receive a kiss, rising your health by 1. This means rescueing damsels is almost always worth a bomb or a rope, but don't go overboard when trying to find them.

Damsels give off an audio cue (a yell from the humans and a whimper by the dog) to make it easier for you to locate them. They have 3 health, and you can pick them up and throw them as weapons. Sounds cruel, but damsels do not take fall damage or damage from most enemies (except projectiles that are shot). They do take damage from traps, though, so keep an eye out for that. They also take damage from your weapons, including your whip.

If your damsel lands somewhere, they will wake up after a few seconds and start roaming around, bumping off of walls and going the other way. If it comes across an exit, it will automatically go through it and have you get the kiss. Dead damsels do not count as rescued.

2.3. Shops

Starting with 1-2, you will encounter different kinds of shops during your travels. There can only be one shop in each stage. You might also notice that there's sometimes a shopkeep hiding inside a wall, with 2 treasure chests. These guys count as normal shopkeeps, although they do not sell you anything. This is important to know, and you will see why.

Shops can have random goods - items, a follower, kisses from a damsel. If you pick up items without paying, attack the shopkeeper or damage his shop in any way (e.g. an explosion), the shopkeeper will get angry and start jumping like crazy, firing his shotgun at you. This will trigger all shopkeeps in future levels, including the men in the wall, to start shooting at you on sight. Additionally, once you anger a shopkeep, there will ALWAYS be an angry shopkeep with a gun waiting for you at any given exit starting with the next level after the one you angered a shopkeep in, including any bonus area you may come across.
Sadly, sometimes, things happen that are completely out of your control and trigger shopkeeps, such as say, an exploding enemy landing into the shop, and the shop blowing up. This will also have the shopkeeps be mad at YOU.

Moving on, shops can have a variety of items, and there's a lot of different shops you can come across. The item price will increase by 30% the further area you are in (sound familiar?). Anyway, here's what shops you can find.

General Store: Sells ropes, bombs and some adventuring gear like the Compass.

Bomb Shop: Sells bags and boxes of bombs, and occasionally Paste.

Weapon Shop: This can carry all kinds of weapons, like machete, boomerang or web gun, but also bombs.

Clothing Shop: These shops stock all kinds of clothing, like boots, Climbing Gloves or Capes.

Rare Item Shop: They have a random selection of more or less rare items, such as Spectacles, Jetpack or Cape.

Wheel of Fortune: Spin the wheel and win! Or not. There's 4 different displays - the skull is a loss, the $ sign gives you twice the amount of money you spent to spin, the purple slice with the big $ gives you the jackpot (I think that was 4 times the money you spent) and the present box will give you the item that the shopkeeper is holding below his podium.

Kissing Booth: This will occupy the current stage's damsels. Pay some money to get +1 health. You can do this as often as you want.

Slave Market: You can purchase a follower controlled by an AI, who will attack your enemies and whatnot. When you unlock a secret character, they will follow you just like this guy does. Honestly, this is not worth it, the AI is too stupid to be of any benefit.

Ankh Shop: This one will only appear in the Jungle's Black Market, have only 1 item, the Ankh, for 50,000 $.

2.4. Altars

Randomly in any given stage, you will come across an altar covered in blood sitting in front of a giant depiction of Kali, the Hindu goddess. These can be useful in various way. For instance, if you see an altar, you know that the exit is in the opposite direction (although it might be further down in the stage).

Furthermore, you can sacrifice on the altar! If you sacrifice a damsel, you will get a random item. If you sacrifice a second one, you will receive the Kapala, a very powerful item.

You can sacrifice other humans too, though - all the humanoid enemies (Cavemen, Tikimen, Yetis, Hawkmen) count as half of a damsel - so in order to recieve an item you'd have to sacrifice 2 cavemen instead of 1 damsel.

Something else you can sacrifice is an Idol, which spawns a Golden Monkey.

Finally, avoid destroying the altars if at all possible. They will spawn a TON of spiders on you, which is really something you want to not do.

2.5. Idols

In many stages, you will find golden statues in the shape of a face sitting in front of a giant statue. Whenever you pick them up or move them, you will trigger a trap associated with the area it is in. It even can depend on the stage mutator it is placed in. When you walk to an exit, the idol will disappear (like the damsels), and you will receive your money once you leave the stage.

In the Mines, it will trigger a boulder trap that will crash through the stage (and possibly anger shopkeepers). You can easily escape that by jumping on a ledge above it, or using a rope. Idols in the Mines are worth 5000 $.

In the Jungle, the idol will sit atop a bridge of platforms that break away after picking it up, and below them is a pit of water - with piranhas or not, it's quite random. These are worth 10000$.

In the Ice Caves, the Idol will be on platforms that will crack under your weight, and directly below them are spikes. It's worth 15000$.

In the Temple, it will be in a room. If you pick it up, doors will close and the ceiling will come down on you. The only way out of it is to first bomb a path before picking it up, and you will be rewarded 20000$ for bringing it to the exit.

When the Temple has the "I hear prayers to Kali" mutator, the Idol, along with the Damsel, will be in a little pit with tiles that break away once you pick up the statue (the damsel is safe to pick up). This will lead into a long pit.

Lastly, the "The Dead are rising" mutator in the Jungle has its own specific idol that even looks entirely different. Instead of a golden statue, the item is a crystal or silver skull, and it is always placed in a little castle of sorts. If you pick it up, it will spawn the ghost immediately.

[Iron Blue Arremer]

2.6. Items

There are many items in Spelunky other than bombs and ropes, and all of them have some sort of ability to make life easier for you. Here's a list.

2.6.1. Equipment

Spectacles will show you gems and items hidden in the walls.

Climbing Gloves give you the ability cling to any wall as if it were a ledge. It is very useful generally, but you MUST be careful, especially when dealing with dangerous walls, such as Tiki Traps.

A Pitcher's Mitt allows you to throw items straight instead of an arc downwards.

Spring Shoes will increase your jump height.

Spiked Shoes will increase the damage you deal when jumping on top of enemies.

Paste turns your bombs into sticky bombs. They will cling to any surface or enemy. This is one of the most useful items in the game, and almost required to have.

A Compass will show you the direction of the exit with a big red arrow.

A Parachute will open up once you start having a long fall. With it, you will slowly descend, are able to direct your fall, and you will not take fall damage. However, it disappears after one use. Keep in mind that falling on spikes will still kill you.

The Cape is basically the Parachute, just with unlimited uses. You can trigger gliding down by pressing the A Button in mid-air.

The Jet Pack is one of the most useful items in the games. It will allow you to fly up for quite a distance. This gives you the ability to pretty much reach any ledge without having to use ropes.

2.6.2. Weapons

The Mattock, although not a weapon per se, can be used as such. It allows you to break blocks in front of below you. Unlike the whip, you cannot use this in mid-air.

A Boomerang is pretty much just like that - a boomerang. Throw it, and it will return to you. You can aim it, too. However, if it gets caught in an obstacle, it will drop down instead of flying back to you.

A Machete works a lot like your whip, just that you have to hold it as an item. You can easily cut through spider webs with this.

The Crysknife is a permanent upgrade to your whip that turns it into a Machete.

A Web Gun will shoot a spiderweb. You can catch enemies in them. Unlike cobwebs spawned by the level, Web Gun webs will disappear after a few seconds.

The Shotgun is one of the best weapons in the game. It fires a bunch of rounds that spread out the further they fly. It deals a LOT of damage. However, it knocks you back a bit when shooting, so don't use it over spikes. Every shopkeeper holds one of these.

The Freeze Ray fires a blue projectile that, if it hits a living creature, will freeze them into a block of ice. If you jump on that block, the creature instantly dies. If you don't, it will break out of the block after a little while.

The Plasma Cannon is another great weapon. It fires a blast that, upon impact, will explode like a bomb and deals the same damage. It has insane knockback, and you can easily kill yourself with it, so watch out.

A Camera will, when fired, create a little flashing box in front of you. Enemies that touch that box are insantly stunned, except for bats and mummies, who will immediately die, and enemies that cannot be stunned.

A Teleporter is not really a weapon, but you have to hold it to use it. The item allows you to, well, teleport a short distance to wherever you're aiming at. This item is really dangerous, as you can teleport yourself into walls, traps or enemies.

The Shield is a great item. It blocks all incoming damage in front of you. You can use it to shove enemies into walls and crush them.

2.6.3. Special Items

The Torch is only found in the "I can't see a thing..." levels. In those levels, it provides light and can be used to light up standing torches (which will also spawn a bit of gold). If you put it into a pool of water, it will extinguish - you can light it again if you touch one of the standing torches you lit. It works like a rock in all other aspects. If you carry it along into a lit level, you will hold an extinguished torch. This item is not in the journal.

Royal Jelly gives you an instant +4 to health.

The Kapala will give you +1 health if you touch the blood of enemies.

A Golden Key will allow you to open the treasure chest containing the Udjat Eye (which always is found in the same stage). You also need it for the Tunnelman to create the shortcut to the Temple. This is not in the journal.

The Udjat Eye will show you the location of the Black Market in the Jungle. It will flash and make a dinging noise when you get closer, and the closer you get, the faster it ticks. It also has the same ability as the Spectacles, so once you have the Udjat Eye, the Spectacles become redundant. Note that you can find the Black Market even without the Udjat Eye.

An Ankh will revive you once if you die. You need this in order to get the Hedjet.

The Hedjet does not have any other purpose than letting you enter the City of Gold.

A Sceptre is, technically, a weapon, but it also is the key to the City of Gold. You need it and the Hedjet to enter it. The Sceptre, when used as a weapon, fires purple balls of psychic energy that home in and instantly kill enemies and damsels. Keep away from these projectiles, as touching them will also kill yourself!

The Book of the Dead will allow you to enter Hell. When in Olmec's Lair, the closer the exit to Hell is to you, the more its face will twitch (similar to the Udjat Eye and the Black Market).

Vlad's Cape will not only give you the glide ability of the normal Cape, but also allows you to double jump.

Vlad's Amulet makes you immune to any fire damage, including lava.