Such a neat concept and implimentation! Initially the formula seemed super promising, unfortunately my brain instantly optimized the "incremental game" part, kinda trivializing it by just spamming the "money up" upgrade until I had everything. At that point, all that was left is the climbing game portion, which was still novel enough to be quite fun, but the finickiness of the controls coupled with the unreliable nature of "offscreening" enemies kept me from finishing it.
The idea here is really solid, and everything blends together well. It's rare to see a game with an incremental component that really "feels" like growing in some way. The visuals and music are very well done also. I think something to clarify a bit better when an enemy is far enough away to not hurt your stem would be good, or maybe leaning more into that system in general. Perhaps off-screening an enemy actually "kills" it, because the most frustrating way to die in the game was when I would overshoot, backtrack a bit, and then die because an isopod came back onscreen in a bad spot.
Excellent game, one of my favorites in the jam for sure!