When the lava first started rising I thought it was a very cheap death, as I didn't know there was going to be danger so I was taking my time reading the notes and looking around. Anyway, the second time since I knew that I had no problem with the rest of the platforming challenges, which I thought there was a nice variety to.
I'm not sure if the dialog/theme of the game is supposed to be pro-suicide? That is the message I took away from it, which is a bit upsetting to say the least.
Visually it's very simple but the CRT effect adds a nice retro flare to it. I couldn't say that it particularly reminded me of any specific era of gaming though.