I was pretty sure that the game was just completely broken until I came to the comments and found out about the camera situation.
I recompiled the game to swap the camera controls to right click so I could move the camera into a position where I could play at all (no middle button).
I managed to create a Saturation potion (I found the mix of GUI controls and console stuff a bit confusing), but clicking the "TURN IN" button on the screen with the angry witch that needs it isn't doing anything. It would be nice to prepopulate the console with an MOTD / welcome message that lets you know it's an actual part of the game and you can type help.
I returned to the console out of desperation and not finding anything helpful there, typed "exit" thinking it would exit from the "lab app." but it closed the game.
I'm going to move on to another game, but I hope this account of my experience was useful in some way.