Must have been beginner's luck, as all the games afterwards I couldn't score any higher than 5 :)
Just now though, I found something that may be considered a bug (?) - you can hide inside a square and when the beams go outwards you will be safe. Not sure if that was intended.
potentially a "timeout bar" at the very bottom of the screen would be handy to indicate on when would the beams shoot out automatically. It would start with lets say a fully loaded white bar across the entire screen, and then it would ge shorter from one of the ends and essentially disappear when the time is off. Just an idea, nothing major really :)