But see, that’s an almost naive take. A convention is not a professional environment. The social contract isn’t set, so it is two strangers meeting each other for the first time. The dev watched me flail about for five minutes before finally giving me the answer, so if I turn around and state the obvious “I was confused and didn’t realize the water wasn’t hazardous” it could easily be taken as a condescending statement. A belief that I think the dev is so stupid that he can’t figure out why I was having trouble.

So I had just a mere moment to figure out whether the dev understood where the problem was, and break it to him if he didn’t. Hence the question. Not a rhetorical question, mind you… a question hiding my information with a get out of jail free card. We were both there watching me humiliate myself, so how do I say most people are taught not to launch others into water without confirming they can swim, with this dev possibly being thin-skinned and unprofessional?

Ask a question. Why not make the cliff a gradual beach into the water to indicate it’s not a hazard?

The dev could have easily answered with:

I reused the cliff from elsewhere to save memory

or

I wanted to give people a chance to familiarize themselves with the controls before moving on

or even

I didn’t have enough colors

and that would have been the end of the exchange. The information was passed, we both knew I struggled, and now we both know why.