Thank you so much for the feedback and for playing. I am starting to see a lot of common trends in what people felt were problem areas which I think is a good thing, it gives me some clear directions to focus on as I go forward with this.
The hitboxes on the orbs is something I tried to design around as much as I could, and I think you are right in just generally making the base block larger will improve the game. The grapple already auto locks the direct center regardless of where you click, so I may try and make the orb something like 1.5 - 2.5x bigger in a next release and see what people think.
On the difficulty curve, you are absolutely right in that I would try and smooth out the ups and downs in a longer release. I posted this in the reddit thread where I have linked this game but with each level I was targeting:
- The Museum: Glorified Tutorial
- Main Frame (lower level): Easy, introduction to large swings
- Main Frame (upper level): Medium, slower and longer. First "non-learning" challenges
- Power Plant: Medium, shorter and more difficult challenges
- Museum 2: Medium - Hard, timing and cycle challenges
- Main Frame 2: Hard, long continuous challenge
- Power Plant 2: Very hard, short gauntlet challenge
And you're advice on bringing the physics more in line with SMB is something I had not thought of but definitely will be adapting in some capacity. The start/slow down friction is currently uniform, but I think making the movement more adaptive to player intention can only help this experience. I am definitely going to tweak it when I rebuild this foundation.
Thank you again for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!