Thank you for playing, making a video, and your detailed response, really cool! I really appreciate the feedback :)
You're not entirely wrong about the trolling :P Originally, there was a mine entrance where the rocks are, and the pig was going to give you a pickaxe to break in. (I'm actually working on all that stuff now, once the jam ends, I'm going to make the game widescreen and remove the filters.) But currently, the only reason to go to the statue is that one of the items spawns there. There's actually a whole story with the frog and the princess, I just didn’t have time to include it. When I make games, they tend to go off the rails with added stuff and turn into something I never finish :P
As for directions to the items, I thought about this a lot, since I knew some would be hard to find, especially the frog, which could be frustrating. The only reason I didn’t add more clues is because I thought back to the second game I owned on NES Simon’s Quest and how obtuse that game was for me as an 8-year-old. But yeah, it is a bit boring walking from item to item. I think adding some kind of mechanic to make those walks more interesting maybe a non-threatening NPC you can jump on or interact with is something I'm thinking more about :)
Again, thanks for playing and for your response :)