hmm, I would say you missed something. We totally prefer in-game tutorials, but as time was short we included the game rules, controls and the goal in the description, on the game site.
In general, you are correct and we wanted to display an arrow or something else pointing to the goal. We ran out of time.
But, tbh: Your critique holds up for a lot of games. Do I have an incentive to move in a pokemon game? Not really, unless I want to beat the game.
Curious: how long were you playing? When I watched our game being streamed, the streamer consulted the game page after a few seconds to resolve the issues you had and gave it another shot. I feel like we lost you very early on.
I love your youtube tutorials btw!