First: thank you for playing and for taking the time to leave feedback! It is really appreciated 😊.
The audio issue could indeed be a bug, or it might be related to this being a WebGL build instead of a Windows build. I have noticed before that sound timing can behave a bit differently in a web build compared to a Windows build, so that is definitely something I need to look at and test better next time.
We really tried to find a balance and not make the game too difficult. We did not want it to be too easy either, but since jam games are usually only played for a short time, we tried to keep it reasonable. Sadly, it seems we did not fully succeed there 😅 Hopefully you still had fun playing though! Did you also use the special abilities? You can use them once per jump for each ship by pressing the "S" key. They can sometimes make the difference and help you survive a jump more easily, which can leave you with more money for an extra ship or repairs.
We also discovered the issue with missing moving ships... right before uploading the game. So yes, that is definitely a bug, good catch, and sorry about that 🙂 The suggestion about protecting civilian ships by you and Chris is definitely a very good one as well to keep in mind.
Maybe with the special abilities you can still make it onto the leaderboard 😉 The jumps are also a bit random in terms of where ships come from, plus or minus one ship, so sometimes you can get a lucky streak and have a slightly easier run.
Still, thanks again for playing and for all the tips and feedback. We can absolutely learn from them for an update or a future project 💪