Thank you so much for playing! That is quite the compliment, and definitely what we were going for. We knew a lot of people would probably go a movement route, so we really worked to get an idea that would feel the best out of those - so thank you for that validation!
As for the hiccup animation - totally get that, and we will see if we can shrink that timeframe down a bit. Still needs some massaging for that balance between locking the player so they don't accidentally "waste" a movement by spamming the movement keys, and giving that effect that the hiccups are annoying and knock you down. We'll work on it!