Nice game! Seems we had a simmilar idea :)
Struggled a bit at first, but then I locked in and beat the level no hit.
While the forward/backward running mechanic is cool, it feels a bit unbalanced. Since you need to run forward as much as possible to progress through the level, moving backward ends up feeling like a punishment rather than a viable option. On top of that, the jumping mechanic feels out of place to me as well. Given these issues, I agree that the suggested autorunning approach by the other person seems like the right direction.
But for a first game this is a very great job :)