One thing that’s been problematic with my entry is players not perceiving subtle speed differences to discover how their inputs and actions actually affected their speed.

I think this little bar below the score will help a lot with that and make it much easier to learn the game without further instructions.

Further small tweaks and details in that gif:

• berries actually float up if you are going too slow or falling down (this helps a bit with understanding what’s going on, the berries are blown up by wind and you are chasing them)
• the first berry I’m catching there will always appear in the same place at the same time, unless you boost past the 250-500 range faster than it can spawn (this will make sure every play through can start out more easy and equal instead of waiting for a random drop)
• hitting a spiked berry beyond ignition will kick it away (this will help recognize the difference between touching a berry with and without fire protection)
• the beetle now lights up fully in the current speed colour (not just dark red tint, but also bright red/yellow/white)
• berries don’t overlap any more, but they may still hug each other a bit

This marks my first day of forking the LD version and continuing work (besides some FPS hassle I didn’t touch the game after jam) and I already got a huge list of things done (everything above as well as a lot of bug fixes, mechanical tweaks and designing future features).