Thank you for such a considered post - I'm glad that the general appeal was there for you. If there was one thing I really felt glad about having reached the conclusion to the jam it'd be the audio/visual theme that we got pieced together. Though sparse in places, I was pleased that we got something together that felt unified - which with more time could become something akin to real world-building.
Having read through your suggestions on difficulty I think you've hit on some really important points and provided credible solutions! I felt that one failing of ours on this project was the early lock on the kind of game we wanted - which was to involve a lot of 3D work & didn't leave ample time for iteration. We were happy for things to be tough, but I do regret not taking closer care of the difficulty curves in order to keep the game from being too frustrating. The point you made about the lighting is also one that, in hindsight, would have benefitted from more time. Thanks again for playing and leaving such a thoughtful comment :)