This is such an interesting and creative mechanic! Although I wasn't great at controlling it, the movement was so smooth and satisfying that I had fun with it regardless! I do wish I could both slow down and increase gravity at the same time to get back to the planet after flinging myself off into space, though. Overall, nice game!
Viewing post in Loop to Lift Off jam comments
I really want to thank-you for the inciteful feedback. To give the full backstory from the programming perspective, I chose not to let players press both because it would have required another sprite and our artist was already behind with the time we could dedicate to the jam. I also assumed no one would want to do that.
To get technical: When not touching a planet, the player experiences an acceleration force relative to the distance from each plant just how gravity works, "slow down" applies a force relative to the current velocity like moving through a fluid and "increase gravity" is actually a constant force to the target planet (so technically not how gravity works, but is intuitive to players because we spend our lives at ground level). The 3 forces all being relative to different things creates a decent that is just as confusing to control if you can do both (theoretically) and perfect play would never press both.
In retrospect, that was a mistake. I didn't test that assumption and took away the freedom from the player. Will learn for next time.