Yes indeed, I personally couldn't go to level 2 reliably haha!
I am making some changes to make it more manageable. There are 4 tiers, first one is the tutorial with only 2 cells, then you have 4, 6 and 8.
I am trying to find a balance for the difficulty. And yes you have to make a choice between getting the items to fill the bar and not go because you might die, but the bar empties itself.
New version will come out soon :).