SPITTER

What it does

It closes at 0.75x your speed until it likes the distance, then it parks and stays parked. From there it turns its eye to follow you and fires a spinning red-orange spark every 2 seconds, kicking backward and flashing white as it lets go. The spark does 8, touching it does 5, and the only thing that makes it move again is you getting far enough away.

The tell. A short bright flash in its pupil about half a second before the shot, then a white flash and a small kick backward as it fires.

How it kills you

You leave them alive behind you while you handle whatever is chasing you, and late in a run there are four or five parked around the edge of the screen firing into the same space you are orbiting. The shot travels at about 1.5x your speed, so running straight away from one just means it lands in your back.

How you beat it

• Break sideways on the flash, not backward. Sidestep beats sprint here every time.
• Point the right thumb at it. This is the enemy the aim stick exists for: your ball takes whatever is NEAREST, and the one parked at the screen edge never is.
• Or walk into it. It never closes, so you pay 5 on arrival and it dies fast at 16 HP early.
• Or put a wreck between you while you deal with what is chasing you. It keeps wasting shots on the wreck.

When you meet it

Share of everything that spawns, at four points in a run.

The numbers

Speeds are multiples of your own. Health grows 16% per minute of run time, compounding, with no cap.