Oh no! I'm sorry, I thought that I had hit reply, but I must have forgotten and lost my message. I'll just kind of quickly go point by point here.
I love that the game gave you 90's vibes. One game that gave me some inspiration was Silpheed for the SegaCD. I didn't really think about laser tag or backlight bowling alley, but now that you mention it, I totally see it and think that's great haha.
Yeah, I'll look into ways to let the player know as they're going in. Maybe an introductory stage or just a prompt when they start to get low.
I agree that jumping back in would help keep the pace of things for sure. The way I was looking at it initially, was that you are breaking through an enemy's defensive line, the mines and then the turrets, before enemy fighters came to attack you. Then when you retreat, they are able to re-set up their defences before you get back. But for this, I definitely agree that it would have been better to keep it faster paced. Also, for this I didn't end up putting in an end, so it's just a basic survival mode of sorts.
Bug time! Okay, first off, ughhh lol. It took me a little while to figure out why the enemy explosion was triggering at the centre of the map. It was because of how I set up the weapon hit and the enemy death explosion, they were conflicting on which would spawn. But I've got that sorted out now. As for the enemy spawning, this one was kind of annoying too. So, it's not technically a bug, they do spawn as far as I know. The problem comes it that they are hard to see and find plus with how big the map is. I've had to sweep the map, back and forth, scanning for where they are. It's definitely easier to retreat and then come back so they are in a new location. A few solutions that I am going to consider are: first, make a model for the mines that light up or flash to catch the player's eye. Second, maybe make them spawn closer to where the player spawns (at least for the first wave) so you don't have to look everywhere for it. Lastly, I'm going to see about adding a radar or mini map.
Ooo yeah, a barrel roll could be a really cool addition. I am going to look into making the enemies have an effect when they spawn as though they just came out of light speed or something, or have some of them kind of warp in. That way there is at least a bit of a warning that they are coming and where they will be. But I'm really glad you had fun. I am working on a full release of the game, and this is great feedback, thank you!