I can kinda answer this haha :). The original plan for the plot was to explain first that the protag gets an amulet that rewinds time and once you completed a stage instead of rewinding just the competition you where to rewind a year back to encourage your friend to train and gain weight. I didn't have enough time to write much so we ended with a bare explanation in game
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Oh, sorry, I worded that poorly >w> When I said it doesn't make sense I was referring to flipping over each dish to find pairs. Like that's a very "computer game" type of abstraction, doesn't make much literal sense. As stated though, it not making sense doesn't matter a lot c:
The time travel stuff was explained & implied perfectly well!