Hi, thanks for the comments. The reason why we stated that one can play causally is that the UX now is not so good, therefore not every average game jam enjoyer would spend time calculating the other side of the die face and foreseeing 10 steps after. Although it is a strategy game, we don't want players to get too overwhelmed with different things that could be improved.
One of the lessons we learned this time is like what you have mentioned - make easier levels or maps to let the players get familiar with the core mechanics first. Next time we would put this a higher priority.
As for the scope part, our primary goal of a game jam is not really about finishing all parts - it is about ideating good mechanics (and better within the scope). Sure we can make another Sokoban clone with a die rolling instead of the box, which will likely take us 1-2 hours to complete and polish into a 2A game level with the remaining time; But we don't do that here. Maybe objectively speaking it is too ambitious for 48 hours, but it is why we join the game jam :)