funnily enough, the stepdown was actually the last piece of content i made before shipping the game. i really like towns in any game, and i love writing dialogue, and i had this whole dialogue system i'd barely made use of up to that point. i wanted to add a little more character to the world and give the game some more context to the setting. but i didn't want to mess with the game's "plot" or progression or anything. it took me a few weeks to a month of work, so nothing too crazy but it was definitely an undertaking. most of that time was spent making the geometry lol--i wrote all the townsfolk's dialogue in like a day or two.
personally, i'm never too worried about whether or not a player's gonna see everything. i sort of make my levels from a standpoint of, here's the critical path, and now that i've got that done, i can start adding branches to random cool stuff. and i just repeat that process over and over. as the most extreme example, i didn't even expect all my players to see the end of the game: partially because most people don't finish games, and partially because i made act 2 so hard to beat. i figure if people wanna poke around and figure things out and see all the content i made, they'll do it, and i don't need to guide those kinds of players. in general, i don't give much thought to the playstyle that finishes all the required content as quickly as possible, except maybe in a speedrunning capacity.
i'm super proud of how the stepdown turned out. i kinda wish i could make a whole game like that--interacting with townsfolk; hanging out; low stakes stuff. maybe someday.