Congrats on beating the game!
I was never really happy with restarting the level, but it always was enough so I never really worked on it. I hadn't even thought about just letting the player access it from anywhere but that's a much better idea XD
Ladders were only meant to be for one level, but they became so useful that I started using them everywhere!
As for using the theme of the jam, I've done jams in the past where my interpretation of the theme was a bit loose, so I wanted to really try and make the theme a part of the gameplay for this one, and I'm glad to see people have picked up on that and enjoyed it.
Thank you for the feedback :D