Thank you for taking the time to play the game and leave a comment!
You can control the ball to a certain extent; it bounces at a different angle based on where it hits the paddle. I do agree though that in the jam release version it's mostly luck based. I've already adressed this for the next version.
The controls are intentionally janky. It's been a while since I came into contact with an oldschool Nokia, but I remember phone keyboards of that era to be mushy. I imagined that a designer of such a game might try to compensate with a control scheme like this. I personally like the way it feels.