Overview
space_attack keeps the arcade DNA visible and trims the rules to geometry and cadence. Waves are readable if you treat them as shapes first: fans, spirals, stacked lines. Your job is to remove the angle that turns into a wall, not to chase the wall itself. Anchor mid-bottom with room to slide, fire in short strings to keep sight clean, and spend specials only on overlaps where a single cut erases multiple lanes. Bombs and shields are recovery tools; save them for trap archetypes—the compressed fan, the sudden spiral—then rebuild posture immediately. Movement is anticipatory: a two-beat slide before angles converge, a small offset to keep collision paths apart, and never a wide flick that amplifies risk. Leaders hold formations together; delete them and the field simplifies. The pleasure is in runs that look composed—burst→small slide→special at overlap—and the screen breathes because you read shape language rather than reacting late.