thank you so much for giving it another go (also for the feedback - hope you saw some of the changes came directly from your earlier post).
I’m 70/30 on leaving the “free fall” condition as is, it was designed deliberately this way.
As long as people can figure out that this is a mechanic (like you did, without me saying anything), I think I’m happy with it.
I wanted to have some complexity in how the player controls that is not immediately obvious and not fully explained but relies on people figuring out how it works. Might not be the best example because it’s not really an exciting mechanic… but that’s the principle behind it at least