I appreciate the kind words! I'm not much of an artist and was worried my basic art here wouldn't land, but I think it might succeed in giving a vector arcade feel, which is very appropriate for the style of game.
You're not the first person to want unlimited lives, and I strongly considered this for an easy mode. I was concerned it would hurt the feeling of progression and achievement as the player masters the game, and worsen the difficulty curve by allowing players to get to the much harder sections when they haven't had sufficient practice yet on the earlier ones. Difficulty was always on my mind in part because my biggest inspiration for this game, Gravitar, failed in the arcades because of the insane difficulty curve new players face. I got a lot of feedback that normal mode feels pretty good after maybe a brief rough start and that it's fine as-is, and I figured people who really wanted unlimited lives would probably be happy enough with saved states. I definitely didn't expect someone to make a Game Genie code for it; that's really cool!