*hides* Ah.. that water ripple effect is part of the actual boat asset so... yup now you say that, that /would/ have been a good idea to do it that way. XD
Yeah, given more time I think we could have worked out a way to have a "gap" in obstacles just before and after the encounters, so it's not unfair, because I also got done in by hidden rocks etc. on some of the larger encounter sprites when testing. Also on twiddling dials on the initial speed and the speed ramp up values is something we could have refined a bit more with time to make it feel nicer.
I think another person I've just answered also pointed out the input issue was due to using the mouse during, and we didn't catch that in testing because we were using pure gamepad or keyboard inputs when testing (and not the mouse) so yeah that was our oversight in testing input.
Thanks for playing and your detailed feedback, we appreciate it!