You started with cloning a classic aracde game - that's a nice decision! Was playing this game a lot on Atari console together with a friend - nice memories :-)
You already experimented with adding particles - if you want to push this even further, my suggestion would be to turn the classic look into some state-of-the-art glass/glow like art style.
Someone did that for Tetris (another classic game) and it turned out really fresh and great:
A second game I know with such a look is"Will You Snail?"