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A shot on a large asteroid does not clear it - it turns it into three smaller ones flying off in new directions, and each of those breaks again into three smaller still. Only the third tier, once it is small enough, actually disappears when hit. A screen that looks clear of large rocks can still be dense with the fragments those rocks left behind.

This is where the scoring quietly rewards the risk. Points for an asteroid go up as it gets smaller, so the safest shot - hitting a big, slow rock from a distance - is also the lowest-scoring one available. The most valuable targets are the small, fast pieces that are hardest to line up.

It changes how a field should be read. Firing at everything large the moment you see it usually leaves you surrounded by fast fragments a few seconds later. Picking off existing fragments before creating new ones tends to keep the field more manageable.

There is no reverse thrust and nothing that actively slows you down, which is faithful to the original and is what makes momentum the whole game. But the ship is not infinitely accelerating - past a certain speed, drag quietly starts pulling it back down, so there is an effective ceiling to how fast you can travel even under constant thrust.

That matters because it means momentum is dangerous but not limitless. A long thrust in one direction will carry you fast, but it will not carry you fast forever, and there is a point past which holding thrust longer stops buying you anything. Short, deliberate bursts remain the more controllable way to move regardless.

You begin a run with two asteroids on screen. Clear the field and the next one starts with three, then four, and so on - one more each time. That climb is not indefinite: it caps at twelve, after which every new level still opens with twelve, no matter how far you have gotten.

That means the game has an honest, findable ceiling to its density difficulty, even though nothing on screen tells you where it is. Survive long enough to see two consecutive levels open with the same asteroid count and you have found it.

The Big Alien is not triggered by how well you are doing or how far you have progressed - it appears on a randomised timer that resets independently of your level or score. Roughly the same window applies whether it is your first level or your tenth, so it does not arrive more often as a run goes on.

What that means practically is that the UFO is closer to a recurring hazard than an escalating one. It is worth treating every appearance as equally dangerous rather than expecting it to show up more aggressively the longer you survive - it will not.

You get three ships across a run, but the on-screen life count only shows two - the two waiting in reserve after the one currently flying. Losing your third and final ship is what actually ends the game, not the counter reaching zero.