[2020] I'm starting a relaxed series playing this game as pretty much a complete beginner, I'd love it if some of you more experienced folks took a look and told me what I'm getting wrong.

Very cool! I wasn't able to watch the whole thing but did you manage to figure out fishing? If not, you will need to equip a fishing rod, enable the fishing skill, and then assign a fishing job by the water.

I like the music you had playing in the background! Good fit!

...Yes. Haha. Did the game boot up with 0 audio? There's SFX and a soundtrack which should play by default...