Thanks for playing!
I think games like Slay the Spire have a very convincing illusion of choices and decisions, but ultimately you end up pulling another kind of slot machine to see which 5 cards you get on your turn, and no matter how good your deck is, you'll get some dud turns.
Pinball is kinda just bad, it's not just you. I think a point-based system would probably be more fun
Bouncers are the punishment for walking around too much, as they slowly take away things you didn't get to see. I suppose they would be more of a threat if the good stuff was near the bottom. Right now, the shops, item boxes and elites are all purposefully near the top. I did not consider that putting them there makes bouncers a less interesting threat. Will revise this