I've played a lot of wonky physics rage games in my time: Getting Over It, QWOP, Surgeon Simulator, Mr President, The Professional, and so on and so forth, so I'm no newbie to this type of stuff. I'd like to think that this game is perfectly fine and just takes some getting used to, but after trying my best I felt like I had to call bullshit on it.
I certainly gave it the ol' college try and tried to get used to the controls as much as I could: figuring out whatever scrap of tech I could muster. And indeed, I was able to do...whatever the hell I did well enough to get through a level or two. The sense of exploration and experimentation in this game was fun, in a sense, and the struggle was real.
But as said before, I think this crosses the line from being a well-designed rage game challenge to just straight up wonky jankiness that uses "rage game" as an excuse. A lot of those rage games always felt that they had a method to their madness, some intuitive design that, while difficult to grasp, could be uncovered and perfected. For example, I absolutely love the feel of the hammer in Getting Over It: the weighty way it moves and bends, the friction it creates when scraping different objects, it really becomes an extension of my being and movement becomes fluid. For this, I dunno, it just felt too flippy-floppy and ill-defined to get anything done with any sort of accuracy, and just felt incredibly frustrating. Even when I did find a workable method, it lacked satisfaction using said method. It was also lacking elements like cursor lock to keep me from clicking off-screen when making big movements.
At the end of the day, I will say that the victory of beating what few levels I could get through will live on in my memory. So while I have gripes with this, I think that's quite the accomplishment for both of us, haha.
Maybe I'll try again once I work up the patience: who knows, maybe I'll change my mind if I'm able to make it through more (but don't count on it).