I really appreciate you taking the time to write such great feedback. To answer your question first, I did develop this solo and this was the first game jam I've been in. So to have someone play the game, enjoy it, and take the time to write all of this, means a lot to me.
I'm with you on all the points, you are definitely not a dum-dum - after submitting the game a few people playtested and told me they'd be doing flappy bird for a while. And the difficulty curve is true, I needed more time to make the levels build more gradually, but just got stuck on other things :') big lessons learned from this very fun process
thank you again for playing, and the time to give your thoughts, I really appreciate it!