We partly liked the idea of an aspect of the puzzles being the exploration of the environment--clicking around and seeing what you can do. We originally even had several jokes we were going to include where objects could be clicked but did unexpected or silly things, like a box that you'd otherwise think could be resized but instead can be squidged to become sad.
But I agree that it can be frustrating when the tools to solve the puzzle you're being asked to work on aren't clearly presented. If we were to flesh the concept out more that would definitely be a good area to try to refine further.