"enter or escape brings up the pause menu, which has a restart stage option" --- Should add instructions to the kong menu for that then. Also, I'd suggest P for pause and R for restart since those are more typical than enter/esc
Checkpoints shouldn't save block positions based on the time you died, but based on the time you hit the checkpoint. Or just make a restart stage option.
enter or escape brings up the pause menu, which has a restart stage option