Spelunky 2 can be beaten in under three minutes if you're really clever, but if you want to go off the beaten path and access some of the game's secret areas there's one very time-consuming encounter. Beware: spoilers ahead.
That encounter is with Olmec at the end of either Jungle or Volcana: the big gold head is a pushover if you're taking the critical path, but if you're keen to access the doors on the bottom layer of its lair it can be tedious.
That's because Olmec must crush through not one, but two thick layers of brick in order to get to the first hidden door. To get to the super hidden door, Olmec has to crush through three layers of brick. The fact he lobs bombs makes things a bit quicker to penetrate these barriers, but during the final phase, when Olmec must land in the lava in order to provide access to the super secret door, reducing his HP can take ages.
The Spelunky community has criticized this phase since launch, and it's easy to see why: it's not particularly hard, but it's very time consuming. Spelunky 2 is a game about short, fast runs. Thankfully, a major new patch released today has dramatically altered how the Olmec encounter plays out.
As per the patch notes below, Olmec will now only throw bombs during phase 2 (after the first layer of bricks has been penetrated) if the player is below him, so you're far less likely to get bombed or, perhaps worse, stunned by a bomb. But more importantly, Olmec's floaters—the things you have to hit in order to make him fall—now only have 1HP, making it much quicker to get him to dive into the lava. Before, you'd have to hit those floaters a bunch of times each.
That's not all that patch 1.15.0 takes care of: there's dozens of tweaks and fixes, which you can find below or here on Steam.
- Olmec will now throw bombs in phase 2 only if the player is below him
- Reduced Olmec's floaters life to 1HP
- Added layer doors to the right part of Olmec's level
- Added leaderboard blocking: see filters/depot_filters files after accessing in-game leaderboards
- Physics should no longer crush the player as easily as before
- Trying to quickly pick something up should now be more responsive
- Bombs can now be tossed while the player is holding one in their hands
- Players can now grab ladders and ropes while attacking
- Fixed Vlad's cape behavior on the quicksands
- Dismounting in the air after the mount's second jump while wearing Vlad's Cape won't make the mount jump a third time
- Pressing down+rope should now send ropes downward without having to crouch first
- Fixed issue where the attack could be spammed while climbing
- Players should no longer be able to change directions while attacking while falling
- Fixed some weird issues when tossing stuff diagonally with the pitcher's mitt
- Fixed issue where players could shoot when leaving through the exit door while on a mount
- Fixed issue where dropping a bomb with the pitcher's mitt was being done with too much force (even breaking regenerative blocks)
- Fixed issue where the bear trap's gold nugget seemed to fly after triggering the trap
- Prevented a hard boss from processing a specific projectile if it doesn't see the projectile
- Track Star achievement will now try to re-unlock on just beating 30 seconds mark
- Fixed jetpack
- Fixed powderkeg journal's unlock on whipping it
- Ghist shopkeeper journal's entry will no longer unlock if entering uncursed
- Fixed mummy's journal entry unlock on killing it with a bomb
- Fixed Duat's dust wall rendering
- Prevented duplicate characters when using the random option on the quick select
- Fixed Arena's crash when multiple players played with the same characters
- Fixed lasers' infinite generation issue in the last game theme
- Fixed issue with music not playing properly when reaching Olmec through the first shortcut
- Profile Win% now takes all kinds of wins into the equation
- Fixed issue when pushblocks spawned right in front of arrow traps
- Shields will now protect from firebug flames
- Paste bombs should no longer bounce off of corners
- Fixed punish ball interaction with pipes
- Fixed issue where Dice shops could sometimes soft lock
- Prevented soft-locks on being thrown by a vendor or yeti with the punish ball
- Fixed issue where certain corners could mess with the jetpack and other stuff
- Players will no longer be considered vegan if they consume the elixir
- Prevented vendors from angering when touching a level generated cobweb
- The player ghost is now able to flip and shake during the dash
- Prevented magmamen from spawning on a tile of lava where they immediately fall down
- Made cursed pots a lot less likely to be accidentally destroyed on Neo Babylon
- Fixed punish ball behavior in the Tiamat's special exit
- Star challenge generation should now be guaranteed
- Prevented some projectiles from tossing stuff backwards
- Adjusted grabbing point for climbing gloves and climbable entities
- Hard Boss will no longer destroy metal or light arrows stuck to walls
- Fixed first theme boss rolling up the side of the level
- Fixed floating orbs' collisions
- Fixed issue where spikeballs damaged players before moving
- Fixed coop crash when flag carrier wasn't the first player and Hired Hand carried the idol to the exit
- Fixed UFO's sound in the character selection screen on starting a new game
- Fixed issue when lasers collided with armored Olmites
- Teleporter backpack's base price is now 12000 (down from 15000)
- Hoverpack's base price is now 12000 (down from 20000)
- Black Market items are now sold at base price (cheaper)
- Landmines placed or triggered by players will now enrage vendors
- Fixed Yeti Queen incorrectly spawning in the Yeti King's floor
- Prevented some NPC conversations from being triggered from different rooms
- If a partially blocked door can be entered, it can now be entered from both layers
- Increased gold coins' shape slightly so they can be pushed away with the whip
- Fixed issue where falling platforms would sometimes break on pets without dealing damage
- Fixed issue when the true crown triggers the teleport while inside a pipe
- Fixed loyalty of cloned players
- Added "back" button hint on the main menu
- Prevented yeti king from freezing the players while they are crossing a door
- Fixed flying arrows with rotation
- Localized some extra texts
- Tossing a cursed pot against a specific enemy during his attack now correctly curses him as well
- Fixed crash when a land mine was brought to the ending sequence
- Fixed some crashes in the Dice shop
- Capped leaderboard resource usage
- Fixed black market issue where the middle row shops were using the wrong floor
- Equippables will now ignite on any magmaman contact
- A certain minister generation should now be guaranteed
- Renamed Bear Trap to Totem Trap
- Renamed Snap Trap to Bear Trap
- Removed a couple of sprite artifacts
- Optimized CPU usage of AI
- Changes to prepare audio system for multi-context update
- Audio system optimizations
- Invalidate input on opening any popup to prevent auto-selection
- Prevented posse rooms in Duat
- Prevented secondary rooms from spawning inside challenge rooms
- Fixed tile for the small sapphire and small ruby
