I will admit we didn't incorporate the limitation in the best way, but we knew many games would have a stationary player the entire game, so we decided to think outside of the box and interpret the limitation in a way many people in this jam didn't, by making the player technically immobile and moved only by a yoyo. This idea also incorporates the theme of "Connections" pretty well since the Yoyo and Player are connected.
The original idea was to make the player continue to fling in a direction even after they reached the yoyo, but we felt the mechanics we currently have may be difficult enough for many. Adding this could have made the game quite difficult. The way we currently have it makes sure the player is able to have full control of their movement while it still being challenging and fair. Not to mention that time was not on our side, and balancing that could have taken much more time than we had. While I agree the movement could definitely be improved, we felt it wasn't worth losing time and potentially missing bugs or just overall the game not turning out as well as it did, especially when we had a movement system that worked.
The artist and composer did a great job on the game, and the game wouldn't have turned out nearly as good without them.
You mentioned adding "sliding off smaller obstacles like rocks to bounce you off course". After you get above the bottom area, many of the obstacles can make you slide off down into previous parts of the level.
Thank you playing the game and giving us your feedback!