Mainly, I think the player is supposed to wander around and explore, until they figure it out. The game doesn't tell you what to do, but the path forward opens up as you find and craft things. One mistake I made was not crafting nails right away. If you don't craft nails, you don't get the recipes that can be crafted with nails.

(you can't craft nails until you smelt metal. You can't smelt metal until you find ore. etc.)