Balance co-op lives, wipe timings, and grid sizes

[adewale]

Summary

This PR adjusts game balance parameters for co-op multiplayer and wave transition timings to improve pacing and fairness.

Key Changes

Co-op Lives Model

• Changed from 5 shared lives across all players to 5 lives per player in co-op modes (2–4 players)
• Each player now has an independent Player.lives counter; game ends when all players are dead and out of lives
• Significantly increases survivability and reduces frustration in group play

Wave Transition Timings

• Reduced all wipe animation phases from variable durations to a consistent 45 ticks (1.5s):
  • wipe_exit: 60 ticks → 45 ticks (iris closing)
  • wipe_hold: 60 ticks → 45 ticks (black screen with wave title)
  • wipe_reveal: 120 ticks → 45 ticks (iris opening, aliens enter)
• Total wave transition time reduced from 5.5s to 4.5s, improving game flow

Grid Sizing

• 4-player grid adjusted from 15×6 to 13×6 for better balance with increased alien speed (1.75×)
• Maintains consistent difficulty curve across player counts

Documentation & UI

• Updated README, CLAUDE.md, and Lessons_learned.md to reflect per-player lives model
• Clarified control scheme in help text (removed redundant "A/D" mention)
• Bumped version to 1.1.1

Implementation Details

• No changes to game loop tick rate (still 30Hz)
• Wipe phase countdown logic simplified by using uniform 45-tick duration
• Player death logic now checks individual Player.lives instead of shared pool
• All documentation tables updated to reflect new scaling parameters

https://claude.ai/code/session_01F9DNv5dEh5MZPrziuqmkWv