I wouldn't call it lazy game making, a lot of games are just going from point a to point b to pick an object up so you can then go to point c and get new story development, it's a game jam game after all so you can't expect for there to be too many mechanics and objectives involved
You can still have a game where you have to find the things, it's more about how you frame it to the players so they feel involved in looking for them rather than feeling like the game is holding information from them until they happen to find it
in any case, keep at it, the next one is always better than the last (usually)