The fact that changes often happen off-screen adds some initial resistance to learning the core mechanics. I wonder if there is some compromise to help the player notice that things are happening without explicit enumeration of the rules. In my case, I stumbled into the solution to level 4 and then had to walk back why it worked instead of planning forward. That said, the game as a whole is very challenging even after all mechanics are known. The individual levels do a very good job at concealing the number of “eureka” moments still left to find.