The timer’s definitely a bit… unnecessarily frustrating, yeah. In an ideal world there’d be more meta-elements, such as the ability to spend gold to increase the amount of time you have?
I have a mild personal desire to avoid endless runners, but I can’t deny that the version of the game you describe does sound more fun. Perhaps an ‘endless’ mode as an alternative to the timed challenge is the compromise the game needs!
Thanks so much for playing; I’m really glad you enjoyed.