Thank you so much for the feedback!
Over the testers that have played so far it's become obvious that explaining the laser and the overall round game loop is going to be a priority moving forward (basically every tester had some form of confusion about the laser and why the round ended).
I actually hadn't seen PVKK until now so that instantly went on my wishlist, lol. I'll try and juice up the laser a bit and definitely add more feedback around the firing mechanics, but I'm hesitant to do too much to the initial state of the laser because I do want players to feel the scaling of it as you purchase the upgrades.