I understand the limitations but people are more visual learners more than anything else.
Id say a tutorial island of sorts would be a way to teach players how the game works with the very basic information to get into the game. Break the game up into smaller pieces.
People don’t want to read 100 books to be able to play the game. Nor read walls of text. (People skip reading to play).
People get distracted by too many things when they start off, often left confused.