Thank you shawdv!
The rotate behavior has definitely gone through a lot of iteration. We landed on the current approach for two main reasons: (1) In levels with more hexagons, a side rotate button would overlap with other pieces, which we wanted to avoid. (2) Mobile player can play it without an extra build due to time constraints as friends told us the hexagons are already quite small on mobile, so a drag-based (/hover or mouse enter based) rotation would likely be even harder for those players.
That said, we'd love to keep exploring better options (if we will have future development hahahaha). One idea is a vertical layout on mobile, with the rotate button at the bottom to suit one handed play. But that would definitely need more playtesting to see whether it works for the game.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments, and for putting together that mockup💛 We really appreciate it, and we love to hear more of your ideas for improving the game!!