Yeah, in development we could have really tightened up the physics, but over time the team went a more lighthearted route with the theming, finding the janky physics rather charming and quaint as-is. If you're the kind of person to get sick from purple portal goo we will ignore your existence. Although, when debugging I always turned the gravity multiplier to 5 and doubled the acceleration rate lmao
As for the theme, in early development there were some more thematic elements related to the only once thing, about life and death, and how everything comes around only once, and there was a planned bonus round where you go again around the track, but the track is different this time, showing how you truly can only experience important things in your life once.
In the end, however, the story was rushed at the last minute with, uh, less than stellar communication, and more humor than the original concept. At least we still ended up with a mostly working final product tho lol