Initially, the death animation was even longer because it waited until the player touched any solid ground, but when I added spikes to vertical walls, I had to change it to 1 second. Maybe it’s a bit too long still, but I didn’t feel it was momentum-killing.
Still, I played versions of the game for almost 8 days while making it, so by the end of the jam I could complete it with a relatively small amount of deaths. For a new player with no experience, this 1 second may add up a lot, so thanks for the feedback!