Very neat little game. I expect this is more fun to play when you have someone to actually play with, so I feel like I didn't get the full experience playing against the "CPU." I feel like I had a harder time than I would expect getting an angled bounce with the paddles. The black holes and speed tracks seemed like they would be an interesting mechanic if I was better at controlling the direction of the ball. Also, the AI was extremely simple, which I get is an affect of it being a game jam game, but it did impact the playability of the game.
Also, on the topic of the dev-log post, I think it was a good move to drop the random elements. I had a problem with taking the theme too literally a few years back (the year the theme was "Out of Control"), which significantly affect how people liked the game. I think having a game that didn't have random elements like a lot of the submissions was a smart move on your part. (My game certainly didn't have any mechanically-significant random elements this year, just some aesthetic ones)