Sorry for the late answer, had been very busy due to the Steam release
Animations: Yes, we urgently need to rework them. We are also planning on reworking the character, so we will add new item animations (and, finally, including hands^^) at the same time I'm pretty sure this will make the game looks more polished.
Particles should already be visible when hitting trees/terrain/animals/players?
Animals: We will introduce hostile animals (attacking you on sight) soon, as well as defensive animals (they only attack you if you attacked them first) Once we have different biomes in the game, there will be more animals (e.g. elephants in savanna etc.).
Content: Yes, we wanted to give the ability to create potions out of different plants. I also like the idea of using them to "heal" your broken bones, we put that on our list
In the long term, diseases are also planned. Climate will come together with biomes. Not sure when we finally implemented weather, it's definitely planned, but only low priority right now