e4 e5 Bb5 Ke7 is the only way for black to "survive"
The only other option is freezing the bishop followed by g6. Just freezing the bishop and playing a random move leads to Qh5 with a jump king capture threat on two sides; neither can be stopped. And obviously not freezing the bishop loses to jump@d7 Bxe8#.
So after freezing the bishop and g6, White will still play Qh5. Black cannot capture the queen because the bishop jump threat still exists. So then black plays c6 or Nc6, but either way White just plays Qxe5+ and Black is lost. If Nc6 was played, Black cannot capture the queen because the bishop is "pinning" it to the jump threat that was blocked a move ago, and Black can't freeze anything because he is still in cooldown.
Ke7 instead of g6 prevents the forced mate but I would rather not play into such a terrible position
e6 is much better but it's still definitely worse for Black.
Yeh I meant with freezing the bishop on the next move for black. Otherwise you just jump the pawn with the bishop and take the king. e6 or e5 as black almost loses immediately to Bb5 and the freeze. I usually play c6 as response to e4, maybe there are traps there too though. Seems like spell chess might be a forced win for white, would be fun to see engine analysis
Assuming your opponent isn't just playing amateurishly and you're not just going for tricks and traps right off the bat, can't you just play the Ponziani with some modifications since it protects from bishop b4 or queen f6 and can get your own bishop/queen out early while controlling the center?
The challenge is playing d4 like you want to allows him to just take it and attack your crucial c3 pawn, if you take back with knight it allows him to do queen to f6 and bishop to c5, I have lost some games to attack on f2. I might be giving it too much importance.
Also I have had trouble castling from this position, I think the idea in this position is to, not since your king is safe and you just want to develop normally and control the center. I am probably wrong though. The whole thing is probably too defensive for this game.