IWFYE2

* indicates what I would consider a major concern.

General:
*No window title.
Saves - nice effect, stays true to the classic style but with a little extra. Sound balance seems a bit low, was going to suggest it should have one til I realized later it did but it was hard to ever hear over the music (may be the music vs sfx is a bit loud in general, or just have a separate music volume).
*Smoothing - I'd recommend trying out the GMS smoothing mode. With a resized window some of the sprites look really jagged.

Title Screen:

Clean but dynamic - this looks good. Note to self to think about this again once I've gotten further into the game to see how it matches.
Post game, I kinda like it. To some extent it doesn't fit but based on the concept/name it works together since the name kind of implies the movement from real world to escape.  I understand this might change as you kind of shift the project.

Stage 1:
General Aesthetics:
Very clean - this is good.
Some considerations: Inside corners on block outlines. Prespawning some of the background objects. It seems like there's a disproportionate number of the background objects on the righter side of the screen. This comes off as a bit strange sometimes. Maybe I'm nuts or just rng, could possibly help to adjust the distribution though.
I'd like to see a marking of some sort for the intended exit. Its fairly apparent in every screen but since there's multiple openings on the correct side in some instances, the clarification would be good.

Screen 1:
Some blank space near the top. I like that in a lot of spots you fill in the blank space with block/spike arrangements just for aethetics (Wolfie does the same a lot too) - could do that a bit here too if desired.

Screen 2:
Save 2:
Really like the first jump on this

Screen 3:
Save 1:
Most of it is cool, not a big fan of the in-and-out diagonal at the end, just feels a little chokey.

Final Screen:
Ceiling jump (2nd jump of final save) feels a bit annoying, but its not too tough a save anyway.

Stage 2:
Aesthetics:
Line in the background is good to the extent that it gives the stage some movement. I feel like it could be something better but I'm not sure what.
I think I'd like to see a custom platform sprite here that fits the metallic theme. The stage 3 platforms could work even I think.

Screen 1:
Save 1:
Had a kinda tough time with this one relative to the surrounding saves. Think it may have been an align thing with the jump right above the save (think the natural progression gives a bad align).

Screen 2:
Save 1:
This seemed surprisingly easy.
Save 2:
Its a little rough from the in/out diagonal onward. Dropping into the diagonal feels awkward and the jump outward feels a bit too precise.

Stage 3:
General Aesthetics:
Tiles/spikes look really nice. Background effect is a little distracting.

Screen 3:
The first section seems a little strange. At first it felt like you were supposed to land above the platform on the right, at which point the screen is setup to make the walkoff annoying, but given you can go straight from the platform to the left ledge it might be better to just block it off to not throw people off? Not sure, its not much of a concern anyway.

Screen 4:
Save 2 should be moved up to the block. First jump kinda needs setup each time and being able to save there would make flow better. Save isn't too hard so it wouldn't be that big of a deal but doesn't seem like there's a reason not to.

Screen 5:
First save took me longer than most, though I felt like it was mostly my fault.

Stage 4:
General Aesthetics:
I'd prefer if the background color stayed persistent through restarts, its a little jarring when it shifts back each time. This is especially noticeable as it begins at its harshest/reddest coloring.
Spritework is a little busy in this stage (lots of lines/pieces) and there's a bit of similarity between sprites/spikes which hurts the glance value. I think making the blocks a little more solid might improve both these points.

Screen 2:
Thought this one was interesting. The fact that there were some false paths was actually neat, makes you stop and look around a bit and really think about the jumps.

Screen 3:
First save seems kinda rough, first jump is quite precise but interesting and the off-the-platform jump seems a bit tight too. I'd probably sooner change the latter if you were going to make changes because its less interesting (feels a lot like a buffed tbone).

Screen 4:
Save 1:
The bonk jump feels kind of unnecessary. It doesn't really change much but over the course of many attempts it kinda gets annoying. In the end, unless its sort of the only way to fit in a path bonk jumps don't feel like they add anything.
Save 2:
This is a cool save but I'd consider looking at the jump from the block at the top. It becomes super easy with a 1f/2f which is a little sketchy outside of tougher needle since most membrane keyboards can't do that consistently. This kind of thing while not a deal breaker will discourage the 'average' player.

Screen 5:
Save 1:
The platform jump feels way too narrow. Really didn't like this jump. Widening it by like 4-8 px is probably all it would take to feel more reasonable.
Save 2:
Lots of interesting jumps here, its a little tough but as a final save that's probably fine. If you were going to change something, I'd say the 16px f-jump after the gate is probably the least interesting one.

General comments:
Readme - stage names? Not sure I get what exactly these are referencing. This isn't really important, just a little confused.
Music all seems to work. Not going to judge based on taste because my taste is a little all over. The electronic style music works for needle games. Again, I'd look at audio balancing here - it seemed to overpower the sound effects and with no individual volume for the music felt a bit off. Additionally, I'd look to put some music on the clear screen, I feel it gives better closure to the experience.

Needle Design was pretty much universally good. Lots of diversity with good incorporation of the standard gimmicks and minus a couple exceptions noted above, the difficulty curve was smooth. Aesthetics are mentioned per stage, there's nothing grevious here but I think some minor improvements could be made.


Where you are now:
Right now this is a very good needle game. As you said, there's a lot of people who say 'there's too much needle'. More like there's too much bad needle, I feel like its even been a bit since a good needle game came out and this could definitely qualify. However, it won't really change those people minds because it is safely within the needle realm. The game has an identity, it is well designed and it achieves that identity fully.

This game stands fine as it is now, but you said you wanted to expand it so I'll throw some impressions of where its at now and what you could do with it.


Moving forward:
Admittedly I haven't actually played potato 2 so I'm not fully familiar with that reference. I'm not sure how committed you are to the name/theme (since you said you wanted to do something kind of different) but I think you can absolutely play into it with a hub area. The idea of progression of feeding escapism - the hub can begin simple and dreary and through stage completion gain more 'life'. This could lead to stage progression as well with production touches that impact each area individually as you kind of drift further from reality if you want to allow the player to choose area completion order. More abstract shapes in the first stage, more vibrant lighting for the metallic aspects of the second stage, not sure what you'd do with the third stage necessarily and the fourth stage could have bigger color shifts (though this is dangerous for visibility purposes) to appear more psychedelic and possibly animate the spikes/blocks.