I will accept fault for the insta-deaths. I failed to implement i-frames that were sorely needed. The way it's suppose to work is that if you take damage again while still under "Danger" on your health, you die regardless of health left. Problem is, for beam weapons if you didn't leave the hitbox before the next frame, it registers another hit. So hence beams can literally instakill in two frames when I didn't intend it to. This doesn't happen to regular bullets since bullets self-remove right after dealing damage. Sadly I only figured this out AFTER the grace period.
The blank spots before the bosses were meant for a little "Warning: Anomaly incoming" graphic thing that I had planned, but didn't get to implement on time, among many other things.
Thank you for checking the game out though!