While I usually appreciate feedback I receive, I find the wording of this a little offensive, as if I have never done software or game development before. Nonetheless, I will try to address the points you have mentioned.
When I started planning the game, I didn’t consider whether vertical or horizontal running would be more efficient in completing the game’s objectives, because I would’ve left that up for experimentation; additionally, I needed to make a design that would work on mobile devices as well. I designed the game loop in such a way that when the player reaches a certain point on the may, they teleport back to the top, and everything is re-generated on a random basis. The only way I could get it to look remotely seamless in the time that I had was to compromise by not having the player start at the top. Sometimes it’s not that seamless because the obstacles can generate in the region where teleporting occurs.
I also had initially written the prototype in C# with Godot before realizing that, besides going over the 3hr limit, I was nowhere near done because I felt that I was too slow in C#. I practically reset the timer and redid all of the work I did in GDScript, and added other features such as the power-ups. I had a build ready and up for testing, but I didn’t receive enough feedback to warrant any major game-changing changes. I kept the game as it was, added the missing assets, and submitted. I’d also like to point out that my time was limited, because I visit family members on the weekends to play cards in the summer.
I acknowledge that there are areas for improvement, as I did notice a few bugs in the endless mode; however, given the circumstances, I did not have the time to be able to make these changes before the deadline.