I promised you an LP for this, but I think my thoughts would be best written down; partially because I'm still flagging on energy from staying up all night to meet the deadline, and partly because there's very little I can say except: this is very, very, very good.
From a difficulty standpoint, this is a huge improvement over 12ToC. It's tough, but fair; anytime I messed up a challenge, I just needed to hit reset and be a few seconds away from trying again. I never actually felt annoyed with the challenges, but they were still satisfying to beat.
The atmosphere is brilliant; the sound effects are exactly what they need to be, and the relaxing music sets the tone perfectly. The moment when your cactus is silohuetted against the moon was genuinely beautiful.
That being said, the game's foreground graphics are probably its weakest part; everything is flat and unshaded, with nothing to mask the blocky grid-structure of the levels. It's unavoidable to some extent, when you're working with tilemaps, but it can be made less obvious.
The ending does sour me on it slightly. The challenge goes from enjoyable to aggrevating, and when you finally beat it, the ending sequence is less than thrilling. I imagine you were trying to go for poignancy, but to be, it simply came off as mean-spirited; an unpleasant shift in mood from what was previously a light-hearted, if minimal, story.
All in all, though, a really excellent game. Had a lot of fun with it.