I thought about this quite a bit while I was developing it, and 3 seconds is definitely far too long. The actual waiting period for this is 1/1.5 seconds (but still gives you a 3 'second' countdown) but I don't really know how much further I can go with the player still being able to reasonably prepare and buffer their first input before starting. I'd actually like to test this more at some point
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I figured it must have been shorter. Once I got into a rhythm it actually didn't feel too bad, but what if you just take the button press as the first input? After an attempt put a half-second ignoring input and then the first button press starts the next round? Maybe make it an option? Just ideas, loved the game, and will likely revisit it :)