Spatter
Spatter is a fast-moving maze-chase game in which the player takes on the role of a tricycle-pedalling child out collecting flowers, while trying to avoid collisions with the numerous enemies giving chase. Most of the maze paths are separated into two lanes, with a springy elastic fence separating them. This fence is the key to playing the game, as players can jump into it, allowing them to squeeze past oncoming enemies in the same lane. Also, enemies on the opposite side of the fence can be sent flying from the track. Solid blocks also feature, and these can be pushed into enemies to destroy them. Special bonus rounds feature after stages two, six, ten and fourteen. These rounds are platform-based, with the player trying to collect as many items of fruit as possible before heading up to the highest platform, to meet up with a friendly elderly lady who is waiting there. 'Fruit' and 'Happy' bonuses are then awarded.
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The wall-riding may legitimately be the only thing that seperates spatter from Rally-X, but for the standards of early Arcade games its a fairly radical piece of tech. It's a dodge roll and offensive move combined that can also technically be a projectile if used at the right moment, and in response to it's power the game is constantly spawning enemies every few seconds - encouraging fast, offensive play to get all the flowers before things get truly out of control.
Its fun! There's very little more to the game than that but like so many of Sega's 1980s arcade games it leans hard on expressive presentation and a simple hook.
I've been mostly playing this on the new Mega Drive version - a conversion that is so on point that it loops back around to being kind of pointless because there's so little difference between it and the original. But it seems like it was mostly made for fun, truth be told, getting it's original artist back to put together some actual box art and flexing the power of Stephane Dallongeville's new devkit for Mega Drive that M2 have built this upon. A tribute to a game that is certaintly mostly forgotten, but frankly, deserves a fair bit of love.
Good stuff.