Glad you liked it, Scrumbo! Credit to Matt and Sam for getting the DMB River incident in there. And yes, Battle Network was a big inspiration for us. We (specifically I) tried to fit Necrodancer in there as well, but that turned out to be way too ambitious for a 2.5-week project.
Spamming one ability is a totally valid strategy (since, as you say, it’s impossible to die). But it’s definitely not an optimal strategy: depending on the ability you spam, you’ll either miss obstacles with your attack, or lose points by getting hit. So I wouldn’t expect that strategy to make the leaderboards at the showcase.