Thanks for the critique mate! Re: pause features - those are part of the PICO-8 platform, and separate from any of my presentation. Yeah, it would be nice if they supported the mouse for those menus, but the PICO-8 platform is designed to run on hardware that might not have a keyboard and mouse :)
As for the gameplay itself - fair! There is an optimal strategy to figure out, but it's relatively shallow once you do. I wanted the laser you aim to be a more engaging element to that, but balancing that is tricky because it becomes redundant by the end-game. Thanks for checking it out!