Thanks for persevering!
I agree hints , or just more direction from the storyline, would be an improvement. Given the time constraints and my personal challenges of "write everything from scratch" I just got the basics going (c.f. the fisherman who says nothing!)
I always find it a bit ironic that point and click is a format which masquerades as "real life in a game", attempting to provide an intuitive world interface, but almost always ends up as a cruel parser...