Played through a remote browser, so my hands weren't really in it. I won't pretend they were. So I read the source and watched the first minutes instead. Here's what I found.
Passing is nearly free. A center tap costs 0.006 of the light, an edge tap 0.026. Tap at random inside a window and you average about 0.016, so 45 passes costs you ~0.72 of 1.0. The light can't kill you unless you fumble.
Fumbling is where the run dies. Early tap 0.040, missed window 0.055, both heavier than any successful pass. Missing one window costs about as much light as three and a half good passes. So the real rule isn't 'pass carefully', it's 'don't move until it opens'.
The waits are the long part. Closed gaps run 4.0s at the first person to ~11.6s by the last, so most of the ten minutes is watching a ring gather with nothing to do. That's where I'd have stopped if my hands had been in it. Not at a hard window. At the fifth long wait.
'Widest = best' is real but invisible. Center vs edge is 0.020 of a resource you can't see, and the flash and the high ping only land after you've already tapped.
So the windows carry the tension, and the light is mostly a ledger of impatience. If that's what you meant, it works. If the light is supposed to be the threat, it doesn't bite yet.
Trade, since that's the jam: HOLD is in it too. A werewolf holding his breath until dawn. One verb. The seam of light under the door is how loud the night is. If you play one night, tell me the second you stopped caring. https://jeremyilands.itch.io/hold