Hi Brandon,
Life has been life-ing and I have much to be grateful for. I hope you have been well and enjoying your time :)
I understood the objective of your game to be a broader exploration of the relationship between visual and player behavior. I was going to say that your game accomplishes an intuitive experience through visuals, however it does rely on familiarity. A more alien game environment would allow for a more interesting observation of the visual-function relationship for the player. But perhaps I have misunderstood the point of the game!
Anyways, as someone who is not at all attracted to the bullet hell genre, I enjoyed this game. Somehow I enjoyed the UI screen interaction a lot, I think because it felt like a little puzzle, and because it allowed my character more freedom. It is such a tiny interaction, but felt profound for me. Isn't that cool?