Big Thanks for playing my game!
After viewing the vod, it seems that what caused to die with time left is probably due to a bug where the upgrade button gets pressed when its not supposed, i think maybe due to spacebar.
To address a question you had, the point of upgrading is to not only miss less, but it also gives you an extra time bonus for each upgrade, also each shape gives a different amount of time as well.
My main takeaway from the vod and fromother people playing it is probably to make the early game more forgiving and to make it clearer everything costs time.
I wanna make this into a commercial game in the future so expect more shapes, more mechanics, synergies, and much more in the future!