As someone who has played many incremental games, and games that make use of a time loop... and having beaten the current content... I actually find the balance pretty much perfect: the game doesn't reward you for just bruteforcing loops to get what you want, you need to actually think out your steps a bit to maximize the rewards you get at the start, and that kind of thinking helps you throughout the rest of the game, then you start getting the loop mechanics, and it really does make everything easier pretty quickly. That being said: you have a lot more room for error then you think... I ended up losing all progress due to a browser reset and, properly maxing out all food and drink, you can get the first objective with a little over 2 minutes to spare.