"I feel as if this article will be informative..."
A "Level Feeling" is a common feature of roguelike games that add a small chance of special themes being randomly applied to levels that play a little differently to normal.
Level feelings usually add special rules to the level, or unique structures and enemies that do not normally generate.
The name comes from how the special themes are commonly announced by exposition in roguelikes, as if the character has a vague sense of premonition about what they are about to run into.
Level feelings can stack; it is possible to have, for instance, a large restless dead level, or a dark incessant buzzing level and so forth.
Spelunky 2 Characters will always say something at the beginning of a level to indicate what level feeling is active, but in the case of multiple level feelings, it will only display one message.
Level Feelings
Dark Level
"You can't see a thing!"
Locations: Any
Terrain Features: The entire level will be covered in darkness, and a Torch will spawn at the beginning of the stage. Multiple immobile torches will be found across the level's walls and can be ignited to provide more light for the player. Most traps will be illuminated to mark their location, and Arrow Traps will fire ignited arrows, dealing 3 damage. Special music will play in a dark level, depending on which stage it occurred on.
Unique Enemies: Tiki Men carrying a torch
Notes: Spectacles and the Hedjet can be used to greatly increase visibility in dark levels. Arrow Traps in a dark-Sunken City level will lose their poison-tipped Arrows in favor of ignited arrows.
Deep Level
"Your voice echoes in here..."
Locations: Any
Terrain Features: The level have a size of 6 x 6 chunks, instead of 4 x 4 chunks.
Unique Enemies: None
Notes: Although this increases the chances for things like Golden Idol traps and Altars to spawn, the ghost timer is not increased in any fashion. Unless the player finds a Four-leaf Clover, they should make haste through the level to avoid the Ghost's wrath.
Bee Hive
"You hear an incessant buzzing..."
Locations: Jungle, Temple of Anubis
Terrain Features: A large beehive will occupy a large portion of the level, and contains multiple Bees. A sub-area door can always be found within the hive, which leads to the inner part of the hive, containing the Queen Bee, who drops a Royal Jelly on death.
Unique Enemies: Bee, Queen Bee
Restless Dead
"The dead are restless!"
A Restless Dead mausoleum in The Jungle.
Locations: Jungle, Volcana, Temple of Anubis, Tide Pool
Terrain Features: A foggy ambience will fill the level, and a large structure can be found containing multiple gravestones, Jiang Shi, and Jiangshi Assassins. Ghists will spawn floating around tombstones. A sub-area will always be found in the middle of the main structure, where inside the player can find various pieces of treasure, Vampires, and the Curse Pot.
Unique Enemies: Jiangshi Assassin, Jiangshi, Vampire
Notes: Seems to occur much more rarely than its original counterpart from Spelunky HD.
The interior of a Restless Dead mausoleum. Note the Vampire and guaranteed Curse Pot spawn.
Molten Factory
"You hear the sounds of metal clanking..."
Locations: Volcana
Terrain Features: Near the beginning of the level, a conveyor belt system is in place, along with a few objects spawning metal garbage tiles, similar to the spawners found in the Sun Challenge at Sunken City. These piles of scrap can contain any monster that can come out of pots and very rarely, contain an item like one would find in a crate. The conveyor belt system will always lead the piles of scrap into a large lake of lava and the level will always contain a sub-area containing more conveyors and scrap spawners.
Unique Enemies: None
Notes: Very rare.
Slave Cells
Occurs in the Tide Pool.
"You feel an aura of oppression..."
Locations: Tide Pool
Terrain Features: Somewhere in the level, there will be a set of 6 locked doors. Each of these lead to a cell, which may contain a hired hand, bones, or nothing.
Unique Enemies: None
Guaranteed Level Feelings:
- "You hear the beating of drums...": Entered 1-4 of Dwelling, also known as Quillback's lair
- "Welcome to the Black Market!": Entered The Black Market.
- "Your blood begins to run cold...": Entered the sub-area containing Vlad's Castle.
- "You feel a burst of excitement inside you!": Reached The City of Gold.
- "It smells like wet fur in here!": Went inside the Wet Fur cave within The Ice Caves.
- "You hear the sounds of reverly!": Entered 6-3 of Neo Babylon, containing Madame Tusk's Palace of Pleasure.
- "You feel strangely at peace.": Made it to the Eggplant World.
- "You feel forgiven.": The Shopkeepers have forgiven the player, and are no longer mad at them. (See Shopkeeper article for more info)
"I feel this article will be informative..."
A "Level Feeling" is a common feature of roguelike games that add a small chance of special themes being randomly applied to levels that play a little differently to normal.
Level feelings usually add special rules to the level, or unique structures and enemies that do not normally generate.
The name comes from how the special themes are commonly announced by exposition in roguelikes, as if the character has a vague sense of premonition about what they are about to run into.
Level feelings can stack; it is possible to have, for instance, a flooded Restless Dead level, or a dark Snake Pit level and so forth.
Spelunky Guy will always say something at the beginning of a level to indicate what level feeling is active, but will pause if there is more than one feeling before mentioning it.
A Rushing Water Restless Dead level.
Level Feelings
Darkness
"I can't see a thing!"
A dark temple level.
Terrain Features: The level will be in total darkness, except within a certain distance of light sources. Your vision in the dark is limited to a very narrow radius. The game helpfully generates a torch near the level entrance which is the most useful portable light source available. There will also be other light objects generated around the terrain that do not normally appear, such as unlit torches hanging on the wall, which can be lit by bringing the torch to it which will give up a few gold pieces. Additionally, traps such as Arrow Traps and Tiki Traps have candles on them that generate a small amount of light. Certain weapons and equipment, such as guns and bombs generate a brief but bright flash of light when used.
Unique Enemies: Scarab
Notes: There will never be more than one dark level per area.
Additionally, dark levels will not appear if you completed the previous level in 20 seconds or less, in order to prevent frustrating speed runs, though this does not apply to the Daily Challenge Mode. Entities such as Scarabs and the Ghost also provide slight sources of light, as well as the ghosts of dead spelunkers in co-op.
Snake Pit
"I hear snakes... I hate snakes!"
A part of a typical snake pit.
Terrain Features: The level contains a snake pit, a long vertical shaft (with cubbyholes along the sides) filled with Snakes. The large amount of treasure that spawns here generally makes a snake pit worthwhile to explore, provided you have enough ropes or bombs to facilitate escape afterwards. A snake pit always has two rubies in the bottom of the pit guarded by five snakes and/or cobras. Falling from the top of the snake pit is usually fatal as the snakes will attack you while you are stunned, unless you land on one. A mattock will always spawn at the bottom of the snake pit directly underground, retrievable through the use of a bomb.
Unique Enemies: None, although snakes and cobras will always spawn in the vertical shaft located in the level.
Trivia: The phrase "I hate snakes!" may be a reference to Indiana Jones, who is known for disliking snakes.
Spider's Lair
"My skin is crawling..."
Location: The Mines
Terrain Features: Spiders, spinner spiders, and webs will appear with much more frequency, and there always will be an area of the level where four giant spiders will spawn near each other. Web nests are exclusive to this level feeling, found around the level attached to ceilings. They can be broken open with just about any weapon or projectile, or by using the whip. Most web nests have something cocooned inside that will fall out when the nest is broken, which can include a gold piece, a gem, a spider, and spiderlings, as well as a few random objects on rare occasions. The unlockable character, 'Round Girl' can be found in the level, assuming you haven't unlocked her before. Pots will not spawn on this level.
Unique Enemies: None, although four Giant Spiders will always spawn in an area of the level, hanging on the ceiling close to each other. Spiderlings are exclusive to this event from inside web nests, but are critters and so pose no direct threat to the player.
Restless Dead
"The dead are restless..."
Terrain Features: Mostly normal, except Gravestones will generate on top of the terrain which can be destroyed for loot. More bones and Skeletons will be found than usual, trees will appear to be dead, and Piranhas will be skeletal. The level has the characteristic mist of when The Ghost appears. There will be no Golden Idols on this level, but instead there is a chance of finding a Crystal Skull in a special structure. The Damsel can actually spawn inside the structure with the crystal skull, shown here . Once the Crystal Skull is taken The Ghost will appear suddenly afterwards. It is also guaranteed that there will be a grave marked 'Ash' on it, below which will be a shotgun buried. There is a chance a "King's Grave" will appear, which contains a valuable Crown and marks the entrance to the Haunted Castle.
Unique Enemies: Vampires and Jiang Shi are found on these levels in place of most enemies typically found in the Jungle, and piranhas will appear as skeletal. There will also be many more Skeletons than usual.
Trivia: The Ash Grave is a reference to the character Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series.
Black Market entrance above Haunted Castle entrance.
Haunted Castle
"A wolf howls in the distance..."
Location: The Jungle
Terrain Features: There will be be a long castle on the centre of the level. At the bottom of the castle is the entrance to the castle, the exit of the level and a guaranteed altar. At the top left of the castle, a coffin ,which contains the unlockable character Van Helsing the first time is opened and a Hired Hand subsequently, awaits your Spelunker.
Unique Enemies: There will be Green Knights and a Black Knight on the top floor of the castle. When Green Knights are jumped on with Spike Shoes, a Caveman will appear.
Notes: This level feeling always and only occurs in the Haunted Castle.
Flooded Cavern
"I hear rushing water!"
The lake at the bottom of the level.
Terrain Features: A large portion of the bottom of the map is one huge lake. The exit tunnel is always found above the water level on an island. In the bottom lie gem chests, some being the same as Vault chests, with naturally spawning diamonds. The Viking Spelunker can be found at the bottom of the water.
Unique Enemies: Old Bitey appears in the large lake at the bottom of the map, along with a shoal of regular Piranhas.
The Black Market
"Welcome to the Black Market!"
Terrain Features: The upper levels of the area are comprised of six shops in rows linked by ladders, and one shop unique to this area on the far right edge that sells the Ankh. The bottom layer is ordinary terrain.
Unique Enemies: None, but is populated with all the normal hazards in addition to 6 or 7 Shopkeepers with itchy trigger fingers.
Notes: This level is not applied randomly at the start of a floor, but the secret entrance must be located in area 2 behind solid terrain using the Udjat Eye and revealed with a bomb or a Mattock. Other level feelings can occur in conjunction with the Black Market (e.g. a dark black market). The ghost will still spawn as normal.
Yeti Kingdom
"It smells like wet fur in here."
The Yeti King in a wet fur level.
Terrain Features: Unlike ordinary levels in the Ice Caves, the terrain of the Yeti Kingdom is much more continuous (although a large portion of it is ice), so the risk of falling to your death is not as great. However, fragile ice bridges with spikes underneath are common, and the loose blocks dropped by the Yeti King can block passages or crush you unexpectedly.
Unique Enemies: The Yeti King is found only on this level, and has a large entourage of ordinary Yetis.
UFO Crash Site
"I sense a psychic presence here!"
The space ship with the Alien Lord in a Psychic Presence level.
Terrain Features: Most of the space in this level is just empty caverns, with a large Alien Ship embedded in one of the walls, stretching horizontally across the level partially or completely. Turrets may spawn across the ceiling of the ship interior, and a jetpack can always be found hidden in the wall behind the Alien Lord.
Unique Enemies: The Alien Lord appears inside the Alien Ship, located on the far right end and guarded by a few energy barriers that block thrown objects. There are also more UFOs than usual.
Mothership Entrance
"It feels like the fourth of July..."
The mothership entrance in a Fourth of July level.
Terrain Features: In either the top-left or top-right corner of the level there will be a conspicuous metal structure with thick walls and a tall vertical shaft. At the top will be the entrance to the Mothership, accessible either by climbing up the shaft from below or destroying the walls from the side.
Unique Enemies: None.
Trivia: For those who don't know, July 4 is Independence Day in the U.S. This level is a reference to the film Independence Day which is about aliens arriving on Earth.
Sacrificial Pit
"You hear prayers to Kali!"
Location: The Temple
Terrain Features: A deep pit spawns with numerous arrow traps and a pool of lava at the bottom. A Damsel and a Golden Idol can be found suspended above on a platform. Picking up the Idol causes the platform to disintegrate instantly, sending the Spelunker into the pit. This usually results in death, unless the Spelunker has climbing gloves or a jetpack to aid his escape.
The ground tiles underneath the lava pit contain rubies.
Unique Enemies: None, but a Damsel is guaranteed to be found.
The City of Gold
"I finally made it!"
Terrain Features: The area is not too different from a regular temple level, except all the solid tiles in the room are made of pure gold, which drop chunks of gold when destroyed. Additionally, there will be an enclosed room near the bottom of the level where the Book of the Dead rests, which is necessary to reach Hell. Picking up the Book of the Dead spawns Anubis II, who will occasionally spawn Red Skeletons.
Unique Enemies: Anubis II
Trivia: The City of Gold could be a reference to the Seven Cities of Cibola, which were rumored by Indians in the 16th century to be made of gold and filled with riches. This theory is supported by the fact that the cave which the Spelunker descends into is located in the desert, which is where the Indians said that the cities were located.
Exploitation
Level feelings can be an exploited in roguelikes like Spelunky with a technique known as 'level scumming'. This is done by generating a new level in the hopes of being given a certain feeling, and quitting and retrying if the feeling does not appear.
For instance, if the player wanted to start a game with an easy Jetpack, they would take the shortcut to Level 9 in the hopes of walking into a 'UFO Crash Site' level. If it turned out to be a regular level (or a 'Yeti Kingdom' level), they would take the easy way out and go through the shortcut again.
Multiple level feelings can occur simultaneously, as seen in this screenshot from a Dark, Flooded, Restless Dead level.
You feel this article will be informative.
A "Level Feeling" is a common feature of roguelike games that add a small chance of special themes being randomly applied to levels that play a little differently to normal.
Level feelings usually add special rules to the level, or unique structures and enemies that do not normally generate.
The name comes from how the special themes are commonly announced by exposition in roguelikes, as if the character has a vague sense of premonition about what they are about to run into.
Level feelings can stack; it is possible to have, for instance, a flooded Restless Dead level, or a dark Snake Pit level and so forth.
Spelunky Guy will always say something at the beginning of a level to indicate what level feeling is active, but will pause if there is more than one feeling before mentioning it.
Level Feelings
Darkness
Dark Mines
"I can't see a thing! I'd better use these flares!"
Locations: The Mines, the Jungle and the Temple, but not on the first or last levels.
Terrain Features: The level will be in total darkness, except within a certain distance of light sources. Your vision in the dark is limited to a very narrow radius, and your distance from light sources also affects how dim the screen will appear.
The game helpfully generates a Box of Flares near the level entrance which is the most useful portable light source available. There will also be other light sources generated around the terrain that do not normally appear, such as lanterns. Additionally, traps such as Arrow Traps and Tiki Traps have candles on them that generate a small amount of light. Certain weapons and equipment, such as guns and bombs, generate a brief but bright flash of light when used.
Unique Enemies: Scarab
Notes: There will never be more than one dark level per area.
Additionally, dark levels will not appear if you completed the previous level in 20 seconds or less, in order to prevent frustrating speed runs.[1]
Snake Pit
"I hear snakes... I hate snakes!"
Snake Pit
Location: The Mines
Terrain Features: The level contains a snake pit, a long vertical shaft (with cubbyholes along the sides) filled with Snake. The large amount of treasure that spawns here generally makes a snake pit worthwhile to explore, provided you have enough rope or bombs to facilitate escape afterwards - two or three ropes is usually a safe amount. A snake pit always has two rubies in the bottom of the pit guarded by five snakes. Falling from the top of the snake pit is usually fatal as the snakes will attack you while you're stunned.
A mattock can be found directly underground at the bottom of the snake pit, retrievable by the use of a bomb; with a little luck, this can allow you to get through the level using only a single bomb.
Unique Enemies: None, but snakes are found at the bottom of the pit in a far higher concentration than they can usually spawn.
Trivia: The phrase "I hate snakes!" may be a reference to Indiana Jones, who is known for disliking snakes.
Restless Dead
Because life otherwise affords you so few opportunities to be torn apart by malevolent corpses.
"The dead are restless!"
Location: The Jungle
Terrain Features: Mostly normal, except Gravestones will generate on top of the terrain which can be destroyed for loot. More bones and Skeletons will be found than usual, trees will appear to be dead, and piranhas will be skeletal. There will be no Golden Idol on this level, but instead there is a chance of finding a Crystal Skull. Once the Crystal Skull is taken The Ghost will appear suddenly afterwards.
While most graves in this level are labeled "RIP," there is a chance (but no guarantee) of finding one labeled "ASH." If this grave is exploded, inside there is a shotgun to be found.
Unique Enemies: Vampire and Jiang Shi will be found only on these levels, as well as skeletal Piranhas. There will also be many more Skeletons than usual.
Flooded Cavern
Location: The Jungle
Terrain Features: A large portion of the bottom of the map is one huge lake. The exit tunnel is always found above the water level on an island.
Unique Enemies: Old Bitey appears in the large lake at the bottom of the map, along with a whole shoal of regular Piranhas.
The Black Market
"Welcome to the Black Market!"
The Black Market
Location: The Jungle
Terrain Features: The upper levels of the area are comprised of six shop in rows linked by ladders, and one shop unique to this area on the far right edge that sells the Ankh. The bottom layer is ordinary terrain.
Unique Enemies: None, but is populated with all the normal hazards in addition to six or seven Shopkeepers with itchy trigger fingers. (Or, if you're wanted, make that eight.)
Notes: This level is not applied randomly at the start of a floor, but the secret entrance must be located in area 2 behind solid terrain using the Udjat Eye and revealed with a bomb or a mattock.
Yeti Kingdom
The Yeti Kingdom is easier to navigate safely than ordinary Ice Cave levels, but contains far more enemies.
"It smells like wet fur in here!"
Location: The Ice Caves
Terrain Features: Unlike ordinary levels in the Ice Caves, the terrain of the Yeti Kingdom is much more continuous (although a large portion of it is ice), so the risk of falling to your death is not as great. However, fragile ice bridges with spikes underneath are common, and the loose blocks dropped by the Yeti King can block passages or crush you unexpectedly.
Unique Enemies: The Yeti King is found only on this level, and has a large entourage of ordinary Yeti.
UFO Crash Site
"There's a psychic presence here!"
Location: The Ice Caves
Terrain Features: Most of the space in this level is just empty caverns, with a large alien Mothership embedded in one of the walls. A jetpack can always be found hidden in the wall behind the Alien Lord.
Unique Enemies: The Alien Lord appears inside the mothership, guarded by an energy barrier that blocks thrown objects. There are also more UFOs than usual.
Typical layout of a UFO Crash Site. Note the Jetpack stashed behind the Alien, visible in this shot due to the Spectacles in the inventory.
Sacrificial Pit
"I can hear prayers to Kali!"
Sacrificial Pit
Location: The Temple
Terrain Features: A deep pit spawns with numerous Arrow Traps and a pool of lava at the bottom. A Damsel and a Golden Idol can be found suspended above on a platform. Picking up the Idol causes the platform to disintegrate instantly, sending the Spelunker into the pit. This usually results in death, unless he has climbing gloves or a Jetpack to aid his escape.
The ground tiles underneath the lava pit contain Rubies.
Unique Enemies: None, but a Damsel is guaranteed to be found.
Notes: There is a glitch involved with this feeling as of version 0.99, due to the limit of only one Damsel being allowed to spawn per level. If this feeling occurs on a level with a Kissing Parlor, the Damsel will spawn above the pit as usual, but the shop will claim her as property and picking her up will brand you a thief.
The City of Gold
Shiny... So shiny...
"It's the legendary City of Gold!"
Location: The Temple, accessed by using the Hedjet and Scepter to open the golden door.
Terrain Features: The area is not too different from a regular area 4 level, except all the solid tiles in the room are made of pure gold, which drop gold bars when broken. Additionally, there is a unique Golden Statue which can be broken open for Diamonds and other assorted jewels.
Unique Enemies: None, but more Mummies spawn than usual.
Notes: This level is the most complicated and difficult location in the game to reach, given the dangerous and tricky quest of unlocking the Big Chest in area 1, using the Udjat Eye found within to locate the Black Market in area 2, purchasing the Ankh for $50,000, sacrificing your life in front of the Moai in area 3 to acquire the Hedjet, defeating the Mummy in area 4, and bringing the Scepter it drops to the golden door all in a single playthrough.
Anybody who manages to reach the City of Gold without cheating deserves congratulations. Anybody who manages to make it back to the surface with the loot deserves recognition!
Exploitation
Level feelings can be an exploited in roguelikes like Spelunky with a technique known as 'level scumming'. This is done by generating a new level in the hopes of being given a certain feeling, and quitting and retrying if the feeling does not appear.
For instance, if the player wanted to start a game with an easy Jetpack, they would take the shortcut to Level 9 in the hopes of walking into a 'UFO Crash Site' level. If it turned out to be a regular level (or a 'Yeti Kingdom' level), they would take the easy way out and go through the shortcut again.
Scumming can also be done in the hopes of finding a shop, but since shopping sprees typically require a few levels of treasure to fund, this is not a very productive strategy for those not wishing to become the target of unrelenting geriatric vengeance.
