I had a lot of problems with level sequencing and getting my cutscenes to trigger properly so I striped them all out at the last minute to at least have something to show. There was an ending cinematic where a snowman appeared out of your ball with the snowman being scaled to the ending size of your ball and decorated with any items collected. That gave a nice player choice of either collect items or make the ball really big as both are not possible in a single 1 min run but maybe encourages a replay where you then go for the other choice. I was also playing around with menu options for the player to select your own time limit for more relaxed gameplay and achieving both choices in a single session, that didn't make it in the finished build either which was a shame as a 5 min timer allowed for the rolling of a truly gargantuan ball.

Unfortunately I don't really understand why the performance is so bad and whether it's being caused by an engine setting or my own poor coding practices/choices.

Thanks, glad it worked for you as it absolutely tanks performance on average pc's so is unplayable to many.

Thanks for the nudge, it was an easy fix. Fixing the game this week has been just as educational as the jam itself.

Agreed. I tended to get the katamari vibe any time I increased the time limit to give you chance to make a really big snowball.