Thanks for a new take on Brakeout formula. I really liked the idea of gate bricks (pass through them once and then they close), they could have been used more than just at the end of launch area.
Those start points separated from paddle seemed interesting but caused also some issues. In Level 1 I have inadvertently managed to angle my angle in such way that ball kept bouncing around the launch area for good 30 secs, reaching just before gate and then returning, before it finally got out of there and I could start playing. Pointing nearly straight up in Level 2 made the ball again take its sweet time to stop bouncing up and down between two straight surfaces – making the gate or the ceiling not perpendicular would be helpful here.
Fire/Ice spreading did not cause much issue, maybe because it was progressing only after bounce from paddle. Making it instead progress 1 pixel every few seconds could help make this feature more relevant for the gameplay. One needs to make sure the ball can't get stuck between perpendicular surface first, though. Thanks for not progressing the fire/ice before ball leaves the launching area, though.
The bouncing from walls and objects seemed working mostly quite well though I twice I managed to get the ball stuck to the wall – I guess hitting wall+paddle corner made it bounce into the wall and then it kept bouncing behind the edge of it, not being able to get out. Another time the ball in Level 1 somehow managed to bounce inside the gate so the gate got activated but ball bounced back inside launch area and got closed there. Providing some Reset feature for such cases would be helpful, otherwise one needs to close the whole app.
After few tries I got to Level 3 with, IIRC, 1210 points. I was losing lots of balls as the movement of the paddle did not click for me – it felt slow and cumbersome and then suddenly whizzed forward. I may try raising some acceleration parameter in code and try again.
Hints to speed the ball only led to me being less able to hit the ball with the paddle. Also, the bottom side of gate circle in Level 2 is nasty even on low speed, the ball gets returned to paddle so soon.
Tiny nitpick: it seemed to me one can only use mouse of confirm the intro popup but then mouse is not used at all. Adding "Enter" to confirm (or being able to use mouse to control the paddle) would IMHO help.
Huh, only when writing this and after seeing zoomed in screenshot I have realized seasons (from intro text) were shown in the way of those little trees changing colours. They were just a bit too small for me to realize this in game, for some time I even thought those two in the upper corner of Level 1 are actually showing me I have still two balls left.
To add some proper chaos, try to use moving bricks, time-based obstacles or exploding bricks. Ball upgrades (hidden in bricks?) could work too – changing size or speed of ball, changing size of paddle, adding more balls or making balls bounce in some different way.