hi - that's a great question!
I did the footstep path by creating a background layer of footprint tiles, then covering it with a bunch of blank items. then each time you pick up the item, it uncovers the footprint tile beneath it.
for the random ending, I used the dialog of the item. it has a certain number of text options in a sequence, and the last one includes an exit-from-script command. so no special programming required outside of using bitsy's dialog tools.