hi! thanks so much for giving it such a thorough look. your words are very kind. you may rest knowing you are a True God Gamer, as right now the thing just sort of "ends" at level 10.
i agree with your point about the level to level variety being basically nothing. :) alas, much was cut to make the deadline. i am right now exploring ideas to take this thing a little further with more variety in the content. if you have ideas for baddies or hazards you think would be fun, holler. ;D
the pause menu was another thing i was hoping to add as well. you are 100% correct on this point. it sucks to die that way. :(
thank you for bringing up the ui point! this was something that completely slipped my mind. perhaps once a certain threshold is met, it will instead switch to a "[graphic] x 15" sort of deal. i will look into a way to fix this. thank you.
and lastly, the mouse cursor locking inside the windowed, uh, window, was intentional to prevent accidental clicking outside the window. would you like to see the ability to disable this feature? :)
thank you again for all the well thought out feedback. this is a tremendous help. <3