I cannot talk for Quad but I thought it would be interesting to give the funkybox a constant minimal speed so the player can only control the direction and jumping and attacking. Then the player would have to change the direction multiple times per second to stay more or less still on a small platform.

Btw. don't be afraid of redesigning (and deleting) things, this ... "concept" helped my current game a lot, it only got better with each level or even gameplay redesign.