If there's a way you can force the player to change their tool to progress early on, that'll help. Maybe something like trapping them in a material their default tool can't dig out of. (and THEN you bring attention to the hotbar and tell them to swap tools.)

The hotbar's contrast is low, so it can blend into the terrain pretty easily, especially if the player isn't looking up a lot.
The numbers similarly lack contrast and don't look like key prompts, just vague numbers. If there's keys for scrolling left/right, those should be displayed on the edges.

I'M TRYING MY BEST

oh i recognize that layout in a nanosecond no fucking way

Saw this mod and inspired me to make a sprite sheet of my own.

You need to practice cutting things out, leaving things for post-release (if ever). You gotta make boring shit like keybind menus. You gotta put a number to the content you're making and then learn how to cut that in half.

Good roguelike generation presents the player with questions (big and small) that they don't already know the answer to. Questions of positioning, item loadout, weapon choice, etc.
But it can also get homogenous. It can even make the repetition of the un-random objects (like upgrades) even worse.

EXACTLY! There's already examples of genres with removed mechanics. Sometimes they end up being so popular that they spawn an entirely new genre!

That sounds like something that would require careful planning to play! Maybe it'd give consumable items a time to shine...

A fighting game without an attack button. A racing game without steering. Tower defense without a line of enemies. A platformer without left/right buttons.

Do any of those sound like they could be interesting? Can you think of a game that already does this?