Play / go / arrows confusion on game screen

[pawelkrupinski]

New users often tend to start with direct drive (arrows and go) and it takes them a while to figure out you can even drag blockly. Even though "clear" command is useful for direct drive, it's in the menu, far away from arrows. Users eventually figure out dragging blockly but keep clicking "Go" (as opposed to "Play"). Two ways of starting the execution (play / go) and creating the program (direct drive, dragging blockly) can be confusing.

Possible solutions:

• Having first couple levels only have direct drive and no blockly toolbox or play, step and stop, and the next ones would not have direct drive
• Moving "Play" and possibly "Step", "Stop" and "Clear" to the map ("Play" replacing "Go")
• Making "Play" more prominent (see ocadotechnology/rapid-router#465).
• Eliminate direct drive completely from all levels
• Eliminate "Go" button

[Spycho]

We added the direct drive in order to make it easier for the very young ones to get going with the game. It is taken away after a certain level. We don't talk about it in the level help though - it's straight into Blockly as far as that is concerned, which may be a bit confusing.

Maybe your first solution, but if we take it away too soon we might prevent some the 4 year old kids from progressing, as some find it quite hard to use Blockly. At least with it there they can use direct drive to add blocks.

I'm not sure about moving the controls - once direct drive is removed, if we leave them there it's rather odd, and if we move them back it may confuse people.

Likewise ditching "Go" might make it harder for the younger ones to use, if they are using direct drive.

We could potentially hide direct drive when we detect that they are actually using Blockly (with popup congratulating them and pointing out where "Play" is)? We'd need to save this per user.

[j4mesholland]

Still relevant.

[lauracumming]

It may also be best to keep those first few levels with the van always facing upwards - so it relates to the directions. We will need to explain about the map orientation - as this isn't really mentioned.