I assume different ways of learning work for different people. For me personally, it's taking a piece of paper and drawing the diagram of how things work together; of if it's some math, then, again, using the pen and paper to follow the text. I can very much accept that for some people playing the simulation is a good way to touch the new problem space. I can easily imagine that for some topics, let's say, traffic signal automation, a careful simulation game will probably give more information than reading papers or manuals.

Game-based learning, described by Comenius, works if someone else prepares “a game” for you. E.g. like a dungeon master. :)

Otherwise you probably get more confused as you have mentioned.

On the other side, Peter Diamandis describes a situation where a bunch of kids were given a internet-connected computer and they had no teacher. Instead of it there was a “grandma” that checked kids from time to time.

After that there was a knowledge test that revealed “no teacher” approach was more efficient.

But it was a group, not an individual activity…