Good to see you are still working on the game! - I will keep following it and give u updates on how i think the development is going
On the tutorial, i think i could work to have NPCs explain it, but i would say do it at a digestible speed, and make the player actually do before moving on, such as having an NPC explain how to chop down a tree, then make the player give him a log before letting them pass.
edit - Oh also- i would suggest using camera bounds for levels to make the world feel like its more connected and less of islands floating in a grey void (=
2nd edit - i feel so dumb for not realizing this earlier - but obviously nearly nick is telling me i have to be level 5 to get lv 2 trees. i thought the axe would allow me to break the trees. so you might want to make it a bit clearer that leveling is the progression needed to break trees, not getting new tools like I and probably most ppl would assume