Love the art style, it looks great. I also find it kinda hillarious to have a button where the player can just die, it’s a very interesting mechanic.
I watched your devlog and I ran into the same problem as you did, just that I am mainly a programmer, so i overengineered a bunch of systems until I ran out of time for animation or even some challenging levels.
But hey that’s what game jams are for right? For learning more about game dev, about yourself and your limits.