Hey there, thank you for playing and reviewing!
The initial concept was "a guy that runs around with a soup pot and has death stranding balance mechanics." This concept was way bigger than we could've imagined xd
We compromised some things and this is the end result.
You make an excellent point about the picking up mechanic. At late stages of the game I decided to put the items a bit higher so that it's easier to identify but collecting them always felt "ugh", even when I've increased the pick-up range to 1.5 meters or so. Going through the item to pick up would also balance more the game into the core mechanic that we pivoted to, which was "run, fast". This also goes into the camera becoming harder to manage, but as you've said, needs to be balanced somehow. Not just hard for the sake of it.
Things dropping of the pot randomly is a collision bug with the ledges, that I couldn't get rid of :(
It makes the game a poorer experience, but oh well. We'll improve :)
Again, ty for playing and reviewing. Hopefully you'll see more games of us in the future :)
Cheers,