Thank you for the feedback! Since the game only has 2 buttons, I tried to map every natural key to one of the inputs so people could intuitively press whatever key felt natural to them on the keyboard and figure out the controls while playing.
I also tried to make the power ups as intuitive as possible by highlighting the game areas they affected, though we definitely ran out of time while working on that.
I'm sad it was difficult for you to pick up, I spent a good bit of time trying to make the game mechanics as self evident as I could. That combined with the fact that there are only 2 buttons for controls, I thought if any game could survive without an in depth tutorial, it'd be this one. Lesson learned for future jams I guess.