>It's become obvious the controls are not up to snuff, im thinking i'll make the balloon rotate on key taps instead of holding, that might give more control (+ more player gas). any other suggestions are welcome.
Yeah, I actually ended up tapping instead of holding, since I realized you're locking the angle into 8 directions. You could also just free that restriction and allow the player to accelerate in every angle, but I feel like you tried that and didn't like it.
>do you have any suggestions on the whole gravity part or is it something you can get used to?
I mean, just like you did, I could probably get used to it. Regarding alternatives, I'd say adding some dampening to the speed in the Y axis. So, if you're falling, and then you start accelerating to the right, the speed on the Y axis should gradually go to 0. Same deal if you have non-zero speed in the X axis and you start going up, or in any direction really, so that you gradually end up moving wherever you're accelerating towards. That feels more intuitive to me, but at the end of the day it's your call. Good luck man.