I kind of wish some things were just more clear. It's not obvious what is interactable and what isn't. A separate cursor icon when hovering to identify these items would probably help substantially in figuring out what is background/environment and what is interactable or eventually interactable. All of my progress was through luck and clicking randomly until something happened because I just didn't know what I could even do.
In a kind of similar vein, it took me a while to realize I was supposed to click & drag from the hotbar to use the items I had been collecting.