Thank you for your remarks...! Yes we felt the same about the early stages and want to improve the power fantasy there.
I think my biggest problem is the "i spawn in, i wait for 3 seconds for a crystal to appear somewhere". That ruins the flow you might be going for. The waiting for the world to populate with crystals.
i think all my problems would be solved if the first 5-30 or so crystals would already be there or pop up quickly. I only have 30 seconds and half of that time is me pathing through empty space to return to the ship because the crystals are still spawning but its too late for me to go for them. Could even be an early upgrade. "Scout ahead". I want to play the game like the screenshots but i'm stuck for 30 minutes playing the worlds slowest wack-a-mole.
Sorry it sounds mean, but thats what it feels like when a game wastes your time a little.
Other than that, the graphics are cute, though would love to see the 2D in the game too. Be it just simply the dog getting a bigger silly little oxygen tank or something in the upgrade menu.