Spelunky

• Try to always have something to throw, unless you're carrying a weapon.

• It's almost always worth it to use one bomb or rope to get a box. Beyond that, depends on how many you have.

• One bomb or rope is absolutely worth giving up if it saves you one health. (For example, using a rope to set off an arrow trap.)

• You can walk through spikes, or crawl-drop down onto them if you're exactly one square above them. Falling down even a single square onto them will kill you in any other circumstances. (Unless you're using a cape.)

• Holding a rat or other little critter will absorb the damage from an arrow. So will a damsel, but you don't want damsels to die other than as a sacrifice to Kali, and live sacrifices are worth more than dead ones.

• Throw pots, don't whip them.

• It doesn't matter if you're at fault for whatever pissed a shopkeeper off, you're getting blamed for it anyway. When shopkeepers are pissed off, they guard level exits. As you get deeper, it's more and more likely that something will kill a shopkeeper by an exit before you get there, but always keep an eye out.

• If you enter a level and it says the dead are restless, look for the grave marked Ash. There's a shotgun buried under it.

• Try to have a compass before the ice caves. Failing that, have enough ropes to go back up and over a bit so you don't end up stuck with an exit you can't get to.