hey, thanks for taking the time to play! i completely agree with the balancing, i didn't even complete the game loop until a day before the deadline xd. for the general arcade gameplay, i wanted to emulate how some arcade games of that era are pretty unforgiving and put you in tough spots for no reason (its so that they can steal all your quarters lmao). i had initially set it to 3 lives (which is insane thinking back on it now), but after having some friends playtest it i realized that the game was pretty hectic especially when learning it so i just shifted the game to have 7 lives instead. was going to do a final balance pass of the game, but unfortunately i overscoped and ran out of time (typical game jam things).
though still thanks for pushing through the game despite some its issues, glad you enjoyed it!