Yes, I agreed the background is too distracting. I originally intended to do brighter outlines to counter that, but they were distracting too, haha. So I'm looking forward to your edit :)
Looks good though the background seems to be too similar brightness to the focused part foreground to be using the same colour scheme so I'd at least shift the background down in brightness by one from your palette (so the blue uses the next darkest blue and such). I did a quick edit (which for some reason I can't seem to upload) and it makes the foreground and sprites pop out a bit better.
I like this mockup. Interesting palette.