TehSilentOne, your game here looks very darn good there!! All it needs are some options on your ship and you would be good to go as in making your entry more acceptable for this competition!!!
=bNow, I too have had a
very tough time locating where the fire/start key is (

)... until it turned out to be the “A” key that started it going, as I just found out. I would recommend you setting that key back to the
“Z” key where it belongs, man... that way, it will make things a real lot easier for us, since a WHOLE lot of PC shmups these days use the “Z” key indeed as the main firing button.

!
Also, I would follow the advice of apples and caterpillars that monoRAIL said... that will have the potential of making your game even better, you know!?
d=
=bAnd here is what I just found out:

...you can shoot from here and pelt and pummel away at the MAIN part (according to the pink circle that I have highlighted here), destroying the whole entire tree easy in a whole lot of shots...
especially when the tree has first blossomed! That just takes away and ruins the whole challenge here, diminishing the game’s overall quality severely!!

Please make ONLY that main part collidable with your ship so that your ship is destroyed upon collision with only that thing (and *not* the other branches). That way, you would keep both the challenge and the quality in for the player, got that?

!!
And finally, when you start a new ship after your last one is destroyed, make sure your ship is invincible for the first 3-5 seconds (along with the tell-tale ship flashing while in an invincibility state). The key here is to be as fair to the player as you can while you are creating your game, man, and that is
VERY important!!!

Please be sure to follow *all* of my advice here, TehSilentOne, and do not forget to add some hot sounds and even some excellent music, too!!!
=b