I think you pretty much got the most you could out of your concept, with different particle sizes, obstacles, and different "temperatures". But I think the concept itself feels a bit shallow. It certainly made me feel out of control, but it felt like I was just waiting to randomly get a bit closer to the end too often.
Viewing post in Gaz (GMTK 2020 jam submission) comments
I agree. I ended up just committing after refluxing a couple of ideas, but it seemed more interesting in theory than in practice. The original spec had a few different "abilities" to unlock (beyond just the hook) like swapping positions and temporarily increasing the temperature, which might have walked the line between "out of control" and actual influence over the outcome.
If you _really_ practice, you can start to delude yourself into thinking you're making your own luck - but it's mainly RNG (in a chaotic system).