I'm one of those people that likes to do everything on a stage until moving on, collecting all the collectibles off the road is fun but getting Author Time is actually frustrating (especially since there is no "ghost" to follow to see how to even improve). Given that players quickly learn that every medal = new item unlock a lot of players will try to 100% stage 1 and 2 only to quit Zeepkist outright before even having 1 hour of gameplay because [without more experience] it's impossible to get Author Time and can be a boring, repetitive experience over the course of a couple hours for what should be really fast tutorial levels with lots of endorphin-giving item unlocks in rapid succession.

By moving "Author Time Medals" to a challenge after completing the game it ensures players at least have a couple hours gameplay experience and understand basic controls before attempting a Hard Mode Challenge, is an easy way to implement "post-game" content, and would prevent thousands of kids from refunding or dropping the game because it's "too hard" even though the fun model decorator is clearly marketed towards them.

Also it wouldn't affect Steam Achievements too much because it's only at like 1% for Obtain 1 Author Medal lol 🤣

Allow Author Medals for online though, there are ghosts you can follow there and it's not as hard to achieve it.