This is a weird sort of game, unlike any other I can think of. It's also a bit hard to describe. The hero of this piece is a sort of double-jointed spider called Zippy, who moves around the playing area under keyboard or joystick control. The catch is that the playing area is also moving around!

Think of the screen as a window onto a map of a very large playing area, covered in walls which form a fairly open-plan kind of maze. The playing area scrolls about randomly under this window, and if you don't move Zippy he scrolls right along with it. The difference is that, should Zippy actually hit one of the screen edges, he gets crushed - splat! - in a messy blob of spreading red pixels. Since you can only progress through the levels of the game by eating the tufts of grass scattered about the map, you have to chase after these without getting too near the edge of the screen (in case of a sudden, random change in map direction). You also have to judge whether heading down a cul-de-sac after a big crop of grass can be accomplished without your retreat being cut off.

This doesn't sound too hard, and indeed it isn't. The fun starts at the higher levels when you also have to avoid stepping on the deadly drawing pins scattered around the maze, or drowning Zippy in the rivers and lakes which have appeared (naturally the bridges are nice and narrow!). Zippy is well named, the game is very fast and I was continually diving headlong into the drink. The instructions describe Level 8 as "no chance", but quite frankly I'd be only too happy to see Level 3!

If you're sick of shooting aliens, and ladder-and-platform games are driving you up the wall, Splat! is a game you should take a look at. It was very popular in its Spectrum and C64 versions, and is definitely worth adding to your collection.