Points come from one place only: stand beside a clump of ✕ and press Space — the whole connected clump burns to black. The payout grows fast with size: 1 pays 20, 4 pays 200, 10 pays 1,100 — times your combo. When a clump touches you it lights up gold with its live price. Landing on an ✕ still costs a life.

Your combo is the multiplier: +1 every row you survive, +size on every burn, +5 at walls (gold edges +8), +10 on a ★. It dies when you are hit. ♥ gives a life back.

Burnt ground is safe but worthless — torch everything early and the deep board has nothing left to pay you. Big clumps are worth walking into danger for.

A wall every 15 rows, with two gaps.

Every 75 rows the board stops, goes to one colour, and every ✕ on it assembles into one creature. Spend your score on a load-out, then fight: ↑↓ fly, Space fires. The gun loads a random colour each shot — your dot shows it — and a shot only bites when it matches the cell it hits. A wrong hit jams the gun, so fly to a matching column first. Three creatures, and they come back harder.