Loving this game - I like how 1980s hard it is! Unfortunately the Spectrum version has a crash that reboots after you lose all your lives. Tried various emulators and real hardware.
Thank you very much for your appreciation and for spotting the problem!
I'm sorry about the issue, I thoroughly tested the "expanded code" version of the game, but not enough the "compressed" one :'(
The problem was due to the old ugBASIC runtime; I rebuilt the game with the latest version of ugBASIC (1.17.1) and it now seems to work fine. You can download the fixed package Lader_BASIC10LinerContest_fix.zip from the project page: https://retrobits.itch.io/lader
Thank you again for your appreciation. Yes, I deliberately chose to keep the game fast and difficult to make it a bit challenging, especially since there are only 3 distinct screens.
However, on request by one user, on the newer versions available on retrobits.itch.io/lader it is possible to choose the desired game speed.