found this launcher last week and I've been playing with it since.
It still works with "muscle memory" but instead of placement, it's the gesture (or direction) that triggers the action. With time it can become quicker and easier, i think, than lawnchair, eblan &c or search based launchers
Calling it softbrick is such an exaggeration though. I can't tell if you faced a bug or if it was just that the launcher is very different from others and you missed some detail on how to use it.
I faced a similar issue, I saw the black screen and thought something was wrong, but I had read that long pressing for 3 seconds was supposed to open the settings, so I did that and everything was alright. It is strange enough to make it odd at first, the fact that they make it full screen as default doesn't help it, but swiping from the top or the bottom (as with any other full screen app) will show the system notification and buttons or gesture navigation. With any launcher I want to try I don't make them default right away, so using the home action of the system will bring me back directly to my default one. Using the launcher as an app will open it anyway to test and configure until I want to make it the default.
Anyway, anyone reading this and specially the above commenter if he wants to retry, there was nothing wrong and it is a very interesting novel idea. I'm actually liking it more and more as I start setting it up.
Is it supposed to give a completely blank screen though? Not from the animations I saw.
I am usually a person not afraid to try new things, and I do so after thoroughly researching what I'm getting myself into because I've been using computers unassisted for over two decades and I've learned things the hard way, let me tell you, and I'm used to following instructions by now.
I followed the instructions. Added apps. Blank screen. Zero visual indicators, just guessing and releasing. Sometimes nothing happened, sometimes I hit my apps. Surely a bug.