I wouldn't so much consider it a hard roadblock at the firewall, its just that it was the first time I died that I didn't think I could pass quickly. If I had more free time to spare I would probably finish every game in the jam, but currently I'm just trying to hit as many of the less rated entries as I can.
I feel your pain in balancing accessibility, my game went from no handholding whatsoever, to some handholding, to way too much. I think its just that you have multiple different audiences who have different expectations and experience with games. Like in my experience I had some friends who were stuck trying to walk forward or even turn on the flashlight in-game. Some got stuck on a puzzle that I thought was too blunt. Whereas others breezed through it and just tried different things through experimentation to see what worked (which is generally how I play).
I think ideally you should be making a game that you yourself can enjoy, I find I can't work on games that I wouldn't wanna play. But yeah maybe try going about the Mario route where the main levels are relatively easy and then have side levels that are far more punishing but more rewarding in some fashion. Frankly I would have to play more of the game to give more accurate feedback than I already have, but that's just my 2 cents.
But yeah definitely keep going with this concept, I did enjoy what I played of it.