I found the art tickbox a bit limited. I made all the art myself, but lots of it was made for other projects way back. I still had to adjust everything to fit the palette and artstyle during the jam, that took a ton of time. So I ticked that yes, but if there where boxes for "all art by myself", "used preexisting assets" and "used own art made beforehand" I would have ticked all three.
I tried camera angling with player a couple times on other things and I find that way harder to aim with, since you need to adjust not only to cam movement but also angle. On my main release I added a mouse aim option where your jet rotates towards the mouse, but that wouldn't really fit here either since you need to be able to free aim. But it's definitely not ideal as it is here. Giving additional indicators for where your ship is facing might be an option. I don't really want take away your engines since that would limit the level design a whole lot and would still lead to a lot of dead end scenarios unless new systems are added to compensate. I think being stranded because of a wrong move would be punishing in a real frustrating way. Ultimately the goal was to make you feel powerful when tethered and somewhat helpless but not totally screwed when not.
In relation to that, making the game play faster is is definitely something I want to address, mostly with more area denial enemies in later waves to force you even more into quick movement. There will also be a lock on system that lets you tether things more easy while on the move. But yeah, the game has to start slower to allow you to adjust. In a full game I would add difficulty options that allow you to start more intense runs from the get go once you feel like you got the hang of it.
I also absolutely agree on the tutorial, I put that there in the last 20 minutes and it could definitely be improved.