Thanks for playing! We are glad you enjoyed it! You are correct, the balance was very tricky. We had trouble with the torches repelling being too strong, the village attraction being too strong, them being out of balance with each other, and a problem where everything was balanced so perfectly the monster just stood still and the game play wasn't engaging! If we had time we would have tried out some non-physics solutions.
We would also like to try out some of the ideas you listed as well!
Thanks for the kind words!