The ending screen asks "Can you do better?" The answer is "no".
While most of the time you have full control of your character, you have no control over what events happen and in what order. Every time you defeat an enemy, every time an enemy hits you, every time you buy something from the shop, etc., is all part of a predetermined order that is out of your control. If you're not supposed to be hit by an enemy, the enemy will intentionally miss. If you try to defeat an enemy when you're not supposed to, the enemies will all evade you. If you're not supposed to buy a thing, it'll be too expensive and you'll never get the money.
This also means that the stats and score you get at the end of the level are always going to be exactly the same (at least for any particular version of the game).
In addition, there are a few other ways the game fits the theme:
- In the jam version, there's less control over options than most of my other games, since I didn't include the options menu that I included in my other games. (Part of this is also due to the fact that the code for the options menu was written before the jam.)
- It starts with a cutscene, where you have no control.
- The music is out of my control, since it uses a lot of randomness. Likewise, a lot of the level layout stuff is also random.
- Later levels have mind-control circles that take control away from the player.