It was challenging, sure, but fun enough for me to keep trying until the end.
A few pointers and ideas now that I've thought about it a bit more:
- Asteroids collide with the edge of the screen which is a problem when the player is approaching the edge and an asteroid gets caught in between. When this happens it'll just bounce around a bunch taking way too much health off the player; instead it should just fly off.
- I've heard complaints about the default sensor range being too short but I think extending it would negate the usefulness of the sensor kit. Maybe instead, use a radial fog of war around the player which could be a bit more generous than the current forward sensor range. That way you add the extra challenge of not seeing your sides while still making the forward range a bit more reasonable without making the sensor kit useless.
- I like the idea of the life support, but I'm not so sure about it only ever pausing the timer rather than topping it up. Though this adds to the challenge, I feel like it eventually forces the player to give up one of their kits for life support no matter how fast they are, which effectively reduces the player's kit capacity to 1 as the O2 kit doesn't really add anything gameplay-wise. Perhaps instead, they could work as their own pickup where the player temporarily loses access to their current kits for say 5 seconds in exchange for a top up of like 20 seconds of O2. That way they're not just freebies but they have their own risk vs reward balance. It also prevents 'safe' strategies where the player is just inching along cause they know they have unlimited time.
- If you do want to take the game further, you could add more hazards and weapon types to expand the range of repair kits you can pick up (as well as increasing your capacity to maybe 3 to allow for more combos).
I don't expect you to agree with all these points, but just some thoughts for where you could take it if you decide to keep working on it. There is definitely a lot of promise here.