I really like the captain and the banther he has between levels :) Being put back to the beginning is indeed a lil rough, but acceptable for the jam. Modern games like mario just punish you with losing score or something, that way you reward getting better at the game and punish less for just messing up.
I wish maybe collisions were a bit more forgiving. I know precise collision like this makes it easy to see when you get hit or not. But skewing it a favor of the players adds a little bit of wiggle room for experimentation.
Congrats on a fun entry!