Yeah you got the pink bubbles right! They kinda have a pontier side that indicates which direction they're going to throw you. We're planning on making them look a little bit more like arrows on a future release for sake of clarity :p
What Goes Up wasn't really a direct inspiration but we noticed some similarities once we started developing the idea, so we actually used it as inspiration for the spinning animation when you're floating!
Thanks for the feedback on the red patches! I've been on and off doing some adjustments to the levels based on what I saw from other people playing and you can definitely expect these to be more consistent on a post jam update
Thanks for playing!