Thanks so much for completing the game and giving me incredibly thoughtful feedback! I was really hoping at least one person would make it to the end.
How I approached the jam was to work on each mechanic one-by-one, slowly building to the idea that I wanted to get to. This worked well at first, but it was pretty slow, and towards the end of the jam I had to start tying everything together really quickly. I ended up making the entire level hours before the jam submission period, as well as the player's main objective in order to give the player something to complete, so I didn't even get a chance to test the level, or complete the game, before I submitted. When making the level, since I didn't get to the other platforming mechanics that I wanted in the game (e.g. walljumping), I tried to make each building climbable for the player, so I ended up putting little ledges all over the place.
I really agree with your point on making the world more fluid for platforming, and I'll definitely be working on that, as well as making it more "open-world"-like. And for sure, conveying more information to the player is a must, and I was really anxious if people were going to understand what to do. The hacking was sort of my "version" of lockpicking from Skyrim. I wanted it to be tense when you tried hacking, and I definitely understand how random the drones can be. If I had gotten to it, the drones wouldn't have even pursued the player normally, only after or in the process of doing "crimes", like hacking or being in a restricted area.
I'll be working on the game over the next couple weeks and hopefully get it closer to where I wanted it to be, so if you're interested stay tuned! But most importantly, thank you for playing my game!