Juice - check. :-)
The play area is too small (referring to the 5x5, not the default zoom (which is also too small)). Starting big would have been good, and shrinking the area as a level progression, could have been good.
Too much meaningless color, with a bigger area maybe color-meaning would have occurred or maybe this was just a "too much 'juice'" for the space? It sounds like some of that color was enemy snakes(?), then instead of full square bodies, maybe the snakes could be colored circles on the background squares. Instead I got "juiced" (iow, zip, bam, pow color stuff, ???)
Looks like you had lots of good ideas!!! Just too small a board...