This kind of game takes me back to the flash days of old, the series of "Do not press the button" where a hero button kills the dragon button, and is rewarded with endless supplies of Pie, to be indulged endlessly to a tune by System of a Down.
I consider audio the top performer of this production, and it used a clever trick to make the death sound: slowing down with death, speeding back up to normal with respawn. It's simple, but I can certainly appreciate it.
The dialogue's presentation is a weak point to tackle. For me, it was a slow moving unskippable text, working similarly to unskippable cutscenes especially when you have to repeat them. That said, this is a UX issue, and for your first jam, UX is hardly going to be something on your mind.