Spiked

Spiked is a fast-paced, top-down two-player arcade game by Chuck Groom, released as freeware in September 1997 and built on the Sprite Animation Toolkit. Each player pilots a ship around a single screen dominated by a big, nasty spike; anything that touches the spike dies horribly, and the goal is to ram, nudge, or trick your opponent into it.

Physics-driven duels

The Info-Mac header is firm about the simulation underneath the cartoon premise: "Spiked follows the laws of physics. Objects collide and bounce off each other." Players cannot directly damage one another, so duels turn into momentum games - banking off rocks, walls, and each other to set up a fatal collision with the spike.

Power-ups change the math

Drifting gifts are what give Spiked its tactical edge. Picking one up grants extra lives, speed boosts to escape a bad spot, or weapons: cannonballs, twisters that immobilize the other ship, gravitrons that drag objects toward whoever fires them, and projectiles that turn neutral rocks into lethal spikes. The author notes that "a crafty player can use several items in sequence to trap and destroy their opponent."

What 2.1 fixed

Spiked 2.1 was a maintenance pass over 2.0. It killed two long-standing crash bugs (random quits and freezes between matches), added support for 256-color, thousands, and millions-of-colors modes, sharpened event processing, and introduced a new "rockyspiker" item alongside refreshed graphics. The author calls the build "more stable" overall.

Compatibility and distribution

Spiked needs at least 3.5 MB of RAM, a 68030 or better processor, and a 14-inch or larger color monitor; the game features 3-D rendered graphics. Macintosh Garden also lists it under Arcade with a top-down perspective and a 1997 release date. As freeware, the author actively encouraged players to "give it to your friends and enemies."