I think this marks the first time when I died in a game in what I thought is the menu, and I enjoyed it! :) This is very creative, you really are on to something. It felt like the gameplay would be easy to learn but hard to master, which is always nice.
I'm guessing you had no time to add sound and music, which is understandable - although it's possible that it just didn't work for me.
Impressive work from a one man team, well done!