Thanks for playing and your essay of a feedback!
It's kinda funny how on each single jam, people like to point out how my game has nothing to do with the theme. Whatever the theme is and whatever I do. I thought for sure this time would be different but hey, here we are again. You're saying that it's only "Bobby Tables" part that is from the comic but but isn't that pretty much the whole comic? Rather than the end, there is a "hidden" bit in the beginning that ties the story together a bit better, introducing Bobby's mom and the school. Bobby also likes to drop tables...
I think you were doing the double brown square part wrong and making it harder for yourself than needed. You don't need any tables in that part unless you fall down. So I don't quite see it as three steps of difficulty, just like one and a half. A few trickier jumps and the introduction of the cats. Sure, quite a lot of people will not see the cat as the enemy at first but the checkpoint is just half a screen away (and dying is even faster way to get back up again to jump on the brown squares). And in the same vein, pretty much all the cats are positioned so that they will cheaply kill you if you aren't being careful, but the previous checkpoint is always just a second away.
Agreed on the camera. As I've said on the other comments already, there are spots on the level that change the zoom level but not enough. And it seems like you didn't notice you can actually pan the camera up/down, that helps a bit with the camera. And that mechanic serves as a subtle hint that you can actually do directional throws with the tables (or maybe not an actual hint but will make players do it by accident). I guess you didn't figure that out either. Sure, thinking about it now, the directional throws should have been introduced somehow earlier on.
Oh yeah I did have the intention at add grab/drag at first but it was left at the cutting room floor because of lack of time and not seeing it as an necessity.
The episode two bit was me just trying to be silly...