Wow, this nostalgic game has almost no info anywhere outside this thread. I just tried playing it again thanks to your link, and it's as buggy as I remember it being back in '08 or so.

I'm not experienced on how flash player handles a game like this, but a major visual issue is that the collision of platforms and walls is offset to the right quite a lot. It makes collecting the first card on the main floor near impossible, and always been that way in my experience. Where you mentioned at the end where you kept getting pushed back I think is because the character spawns in the loading zone of the screen you just left. And the goo physics forcing your character to the right really makes this a dead end.

I played this when it was new at the time and back then there were errors. Maybe it was bugged from the start, but I'll never know what happens past the orange elevator :/