Much appreciated!
I was initially using Unity for this project, but I kept running into issues so I ported my assets/existing code to an old version of nCine.
You raise a good point with the loading screen; initially I was going to stick with an animated barber pole but I made a last minute call to use a stock loading screen instead. It doesn't really mesh with the rest of the game, so I think I'll add that pole back in. In future revisions, I'll work on the accessibility/UI elements a bit too.
(and honestly I wanted to add more tools like hair ties and sponges, but the timeframe limited me there 😔)
Thanks for the advice! :^)