itch.io

I appreciate your response, and in answer to your question, no, I dont think arrows would help. 

To me "running out of time", while certainly an optional theme, didnt seem to cater to the gameplay or other mechanics. 

If the goal was to fit more mechanics in then you achieved it, but as a player I was left wondering if it would be more fun with less. Perhaps its just a matter of taste, but replaying the same level (medium difficulty) to learn it better instead of eventually advancing to its end, even if it takes me a while, felt discoraging and made me feel less enticed to play a game that I was originally excited for. I didnt even care to try hard mode after a few goes at medium. It felt a little punishing to not let me advance through medium because I had a slow time.  Maybe giving the players an option to restart when time hits zero could be an option. 

Why not allow progression and start to deplete from points when im out of time. Having a negative score at the end and still allowing me to see all the content might have felt better than cutting me off from content I was interested in playing, even if I couldnt do it quickly. 

I used to play a lot of Marble Madness, and it had a similar issue. I loved the levels and exploring the content, but it was very tough to see the end beacuse when you ran out of time it was time to put in a nother quarter and restart. Which made sense in a coin op  or even game rental environment, as frustrating as it felt as a player. But games have since moved away from this for multiple reasons. Mechanics like this may help to keep the hardcore players involved for longer, but they also have the side effect of causing the casual players to move on more quickly. 

Hope that makes sense. Either way its still a very strong project that you should be proud of!