Congrats!
One little nitpick is that while I prefer hardmode for puzzles like this, on mobile (where I prefer to play such games), it's WAY too easy to misclick on the keyboard. I had "8 excess keystrokes," but those were all due to mistyping then deleting a single mistyped character (e.g. "ee" -> "er").
Not sure how to keep the essence of the skill-based approach, without the frustration induced by typing on a mobile keyboard.
Anyway, great job and congrats again!