Hello. Thank for playing, and thanks for describing your experience with the game! Indeed, I've had complaints about the laser since the first version of the game, so I tried to make it more predictable by making it have a slower onset, but you just gave me a good idea with the fading in. And yeah, I should probably make actual graphics for it instead of it just being generic SDL rectangles. Continues weren't high on my priority list so instead of actually "continuing" I just made them restart the stage with a bunch of lives. I'll probably change it by the next version.