getting gud

Before playing this game, I first suggest that you do casual playthroughs until you finish the game in it's entirety.

The reason for that is that the game does a little bit of "lifegating" in a sense. Basically, the more time you spend on a level and the more you die, a life bar drains away your life. This life bar does not replenish completely after each stage, so the life you finish a stage with, is the life you get for the next stage.

The problem with that is that at some point you might reach a stage that takes 3 minutes and you have half a lifebar for it. This amount of life is not enough to finish this stage even if you do it perfectly.

So you should probably familiarise yourself with the game and it's controls before going for a run.