Thanks for this exhausting review! You made a lot of good points, wich is much appreciated! A few words reacting to your suggestion:
We wanted to add a boss fight so that it gets more fun afteer few levels. Also the difficulty wasnt probably set high enough in the higher levels.
The huge particle effects, camera shaking etc.. would be much more fun, I agree.. but again its a one week jam. We will try to add them later after the jam ends!
For the respawn of those followers - we wanted you to be careful about them, because they were your crewmates and you dont want to lose them or use them as a shield!
And finally your comment did not come too harsh, instead we are grateful for such a detailed review! Thanks again :).