Your description reminds me of the Outer Wilds, the creator wrote a thesis on the game. While it is a bit awkward to get used to the time limit it's part exploration, part archeological adventure, part flight simulator and part platforming. The latter parts take a bit to get used to but really make the game fantastic. It's up there for me with journey and it sounds like I should really play KRZ. I just wish I could forget the Outer Wilds and play it again.
Both were published by Annapurna Interactive. Along with Donut County, What Remains Of Edith Finch, and Gorogoa.
The only thing I've played that they've published that I felt let down by was Wattam, and that's probably substantially because my expectations were too high.
Yeah, I think that comparison is a little bit of a trap in that they seem more similar than they are.
They both offer a fundamentally similar mechanic (and I think I agree that Katamari's expression is more viscerally satisfying), but Katamari is about momentum and control and twitch judgement and pathfinding; Donut County is (mostly) about solving chill puzzles (easy but clever) and following the story.
Both have in common elaboration of their crazy worlds, clever dialog (though I think DC has an edge there), and great music (where I think Katamari has an edge).
I do think Katamari is quite a bit more replayable. Watching someone new play Donut County is a joy, but revisiting it myself for the Nth time is... not.
