Thanks for checking it out. Yes, I dreamed big, then I ended up with a lot less time than I expected. The funny thing is that I also considered an even simpler ship combat like in the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, but after playing it, I felt the need for more. Looks like it was still not enough.
The crawler movement speed definitely should be fast enough. The cover gif should give you a sense of how it was intended. Every step is set to 0.25 sec. So if it's slower than that for you, I suspect the lack of optimization on my side as the root cause of your bad experience with it.
Preventing crate pickups while backing was intentional, because originally I wanted to add a crate opening animation. But then I simplified the mechanic without revisiting the original idea. During the final testing I noticed it, but it was too late and felt too small of an issue to fix it.
Originally, I wanted to show the map right after winning the battle, even offering the player to place markers on the map, which they would see during the crawler part. But then came the idea of showing it on the bridge. Not too fair, since it pushes the player to replay the game once found the map, but since the whole game can be beaten in less than 5 mins, I felt it's ok for now. In the post jam version, I'll definitely move the map before the crawling part.
Until then, I have added a screenshot about it to the game page.