I had a lot more fun with this one than I was expecting. It's small scoped, as a jam game should be, and a little janky here and there, but I enjoyed embracing it for what it was and found it to be fun when it worked.
You were present when I was streaming this and seemed to have awareness of the kinds of physics bugs I encountered.
I think you're using hinge joints here? IIRC you can provide limits on how far they can rotate, which may allow you to stop the claws going inside out. A reset button that frees the claw/rope and instantiates a new one might be a quick and easy workaround if you wanted to make this version more accessible.