thanks!
yeah the speedup was a rushed last-minute addition... honestly serves more of a purpose of preventing people from playing forever and getting bored and overflowing the score than actually feeling like a good curve right now...
to go into the technicals: it takes 60 frames (1 second) for a piece to fall from gravity, and this timer reduces by 5 frames (1/20th of a second) with each max square cleared. so it's basically imperceptible at first, but the change proportionately becomes bigger as it goes on, and it becomes virtually unplayable after long enough. it also introduces feel-bad misplays because i didn't implement separate lock delay and piece entry delay, which is definitely one of the first things i want to improve once the jam's over...
also honestly i've made music with a tracker before, but yeah i haven't practiced with pico-8 yet. i would also rather have silence than something that gets grating quick... but it seems the lack of music is a common critique, so i can give it a shot someday.