So my dad actually used to work as director of animation at RobsomeStudios, he's the guy in the episode of Sout-
Jokes aside, this was fun. The levels were short and fairly easy, which made me really eager to try and get the good ending. The choice of enemies is very subtle and off-the-nose. Speaking more on the enemies, when I started playing I kept dying by jumping on, uh, "The Second Generation Hire", but other times I would survive. I figured it was some weird inconsistent behavior. I realized what it was though: the death ferrets. They spawn above Tho- uh, The Second Generation Hire, and have their hitbox active instantly, meaning they can (reverse) spawn-kill you. Having their hitbox be disabled for a bit after spawning, or maybe even after landing, would make it a lot more fair.
As for the POTUS, the player character being centered on the screen means we don't always have time to react to him shooting away his wad of paper. They probably caused most of my deaths as well, so you're not alone there. Having the player be slightly more to the left of center when walking right, and slightly to the right of center when walking left, would allow the player to see more of the level ahead of them and having time to react. There is a tiny delay after landing that prevents you from jumping, and that shit killed me so many times, where I reacted to a wad of paper in time but just could not jump. That was probably the only thing I found really frustrating. 1inthechamber below mentioned the hitboxes being a bit too big, and I do kind of agree. Dying was annoying, but like I mentioned earlier the levels are so short that you catch up quickly.
I love the parallax effect on the sun, and the fact that the levels are themed after different times of day. It's a nice way to add an extra feeling of progression other than just the fact that we just started a new level. When I went to a lecture on level design, it was mentioned that a change of environments is a great way to signify progression. And in general, it just makes things feel more varied than only having a daytime overworld style.
The spritework in general is really nice, love the PICO-8 simplicity. Keep making cool shit!