Hi! Oh no we really dislike the "git gud" mentality and weren't aiming for that at all. The ramp up does get pretty dramatic, it's literally exponential. The answer is that it's a demo so we were trying to find a balance between not to slow but not too fast. I guess we didn't really hit that!
We'll look into difficulty scaling and try to update it as soon as possible, please be patient with us!
Seconding this comment! Neuro-divergent myself and I'm probably going to kickstart the game anyway because ooh, fantasy from (instead of of) a culture I haven't seen a lot of and such pretty art! But my hand-eye coordination and reaction speed are... Well. I'd love to be able to play this and experience it as intended instead of just watching an LP.
The new difficulty settings are definitely named right. I could enjoy the game at a relaxed pace on "Chill", "Un-chill" I got to about speed level 5 again and it all fell apart, and "Oh Jeez, Oh F*ck" was a whirlwind right from the start. (I saw what you did there, with additional spirit symbols with the higher difficulties, too.)
Looks like it'll be fun to watch people play the higher difficulty modes, I think. Even knowing I can swap spirits with empty spaces doesn't help the sides from filling up pretty quickly.
