Thanks for the feedback! I really like the idea of your abilities being in the UI, hidden behind the portraits.
I had two much larger levels at the end, but I came to a similar conclusion as you. Without increasing the difficulty or introducing new puzzle mechanisms (both a hard sell for a jam game) they got pretty monotonous.
The points system was my mechanism for rewarding a more optimal play through. Unfortunately it wasn’t fully baked into the game ending. My initial plan was to have 2-3 endings based on your score, but ended up cutting that idea.
Most levels were designed as a cycle with a hard direction and an easy direction. Steve’s initial facing was supposed to indicate the best direction to go. Since my goal was to create a really casual experience, I really should have communicated more this explicitly, e.g. with little directional arrows.