First off, thank you for reviewing the game and leaving great feedback. It really means a lot and it helps us learn and grow.
Do you think you can check out this guide and tell us if it's helpful for new players?
We tested locking the character from rotating (and even made the yo-yo shoot from the hand), but it messed up a lot of the physics and made the game too easy. It gave the player way too much control and it felt too rigid. It didn't feel exciting or fun. We do have an idea to make the character only rotate slightly, instead of freely. That might be the perfect balance between the two, but it requires code to achieve this and we did not test it due to a lack of time.
Originally we wanted to make the yo-yo only follow the string and we almost got it working, but the yo-yo would glitch out sometimes and we didn't know how to fix it. We agree that we should adjust the camera size or change the player size, and we'll most likely make this change after the jam is over. Thank you for the suggestion.
Yes, the yo-yo intentionally moves/updates slower than the purple cursor to give a feeling of weight to the yo-yo. For the most part, the game can be played slowly and methodically. I believe that playing slower and taking your time makes the game much easier. I can play the game very quickly and it makes it more challenging for me. That is something that I really wanted to put in the game, because it adds replay value for me. It also acts as a automatic difficulty scaling, because the players will most likely play at a speed that makes it challenging for them.
Thank you again for taking the time to leave a comment and providing feedback. I hope you read this comment and can understand the amount of thought we put into the game. The current build of the game is not perfect, but is the best we could do in 48 hours.