Thank you so much for playing the game. I'm sorry that the game frustrated you 😅. I think you've hit the nail on the head with the zoom level. I tried to let you change the window size to see more of the game, but the fullscreen shader was a little buggy under those conditions so, in fear of breaking it, I set it to viewport scaling which is why you can see so little. The two wonderful artists I worked with made very big art that I didn't want to ruin by scaling down, however in hindsight I think it would've been worth it because, yeah, you can't see much of the screen. I could've also maybe moved the camera to the right so your character is on the left half of the screen (but that would've made problems in other parts of the game).
The design I cooked up right at the start was a sort of clicker game. You start by getting only a few coins at a time at the beginning, and as you upgrade the rate goes up and up to where you're just completely overpowered and can easily just waltz through to the end. This requires careful level design and attention to the upgrade pricing curves. I think this is ultimately what I missed the mark on the most. I didn't get around to play testing until the last day or two of the jam so I really didn't give it the TLC it deserved and your comment shows that. If I had another day or two I'd tune things better.
Funny story, I had originally made it so you lose *all* coins when you die, but switched it to half right before I submitted. I think I should've gone all the way and just let the player keep the treasure haha.
Anyway, thank you again for playing!