No worries :) . Glad the feedback helped.
Nice to hear you were considering the same things and and already refined the experience. It can be difficult with so much biased/loud discussion about game length to remember it can be more valuable to cut back, and even when you do to actually cut back.
Ahh yeah if you'd had the time to implement that it would have felt more natural to be there, sorry to hear it had to be cut, would have increased the impact of the conversation with steve going on too, though I tend to prefer a single refined story so enjoyed what you had.
Oh, for my experience I figured that the direction of the conversation in the background was the 'guided path' so followed that, definitely didn't consider there was a difficulty in your direction. Some communication about that will definitely help shape up any post-jam refinement you may work on for this.