I find myself absolutely paralyzed by the first move.

Which moves seem good to you? 

Actually I’m testing this game, quite interesting.
For the first move, you should give to orange a 5 blocks piece with a lot of corners, at least 6, more likely 7-8.And something with 4-5 corners to blue.

I think a 1-2 (1 for blue and 2 for orange) opening looks balanced too, although with the smallest pieces taken out from the beginning, games are prone to degenerate into boring bin-packing problems. These days I tend to start with larger pieces to create a more combatant game dynamic.