Yea prepping before the end of the tutorial was a thing I did notice was possible. I did a guess that most players would just do as instructed and not use the moment, but you can absolutely! I was on edge about removing it, it would be very odd for the player if what they had made just disappeared, so I prioritized immersion. So it's not really intended, but it was definitely something I consciously let slip. I think you are one of the few to notice, I'm kind of impressed!
Explaining buttons is definitely a thing, if I'd slapped on a start menu I would have put it in there. That does get a bit funky though, as you can play pico8 games on mobile (it's super cute, try it!), and it would be just a lil odd for those players. Anyways that's probably like one person, I'm just making up excuses at this point. Prioritized other stuff didn't do it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Thank you so much for trying the game, appreciate it very much!