Thank you for your valuable input, Kodikos. You are absolutely right about the physics going haywire after the ball bounces off the shield. I need to find a more effective way to render the ball "unscorable/burnt out/disabled" in such scenarios.
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It's so easy for a simple idea to have lots of caveats, and when you're trying to do it all on your own in a 48hr window, it is a lot to take on. I think everyone that I reviewed did a super effort on their games. Regarding the idea of removing the protection, it might depend on the direction you want to take it. Arcade games tend to start rewarding successful players with crazy powerups and god modes, so if you did it as a raw feature, maybe building on those pop-up words with other kinds of distracting eye candy might balance it a little. Equally, you could combine it with another disabling feature, like it's slow-mo so it would only work if you were already in the vacinity of where the ball would land. Anyway, don't want to spoil your creative fun.. you got it!