The item you grabbed wasn’t the ticket; it was actually money. The idea was to use that money to purchase the ticket from the nearby automata. I agree that this part could use a bit more clarity in terms of intuitiveness.
Regarding the area with two stairs, the second set was supposed to lead to another section, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to finish that part.
I get your point about breezing through levels near the edges. We didn’t have much time to fine-tune the difficulty.
Thanks for your feedback!