Thank you for playing! The missile chase is the key part of the game; the timer is a warmup to get in the groove before it spawns. It is possible to outrun the missile without the need of the powerups, but it is challenging. I was thinking about having a small radius where collectables get pulled in, so I might just implement that in the post-jam version of the game. The loop itself is just there to facilitate the chase, but maybe completing a loop in the future could offer a larger score bonus? Maybe a score multiplier? But thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it :)