Wow! Thank you for your wonderful review! Some of the things you've said are to be expected, but some are surprising!
You are the first person who has said that the art is creepy and uncalming. Most are saying "wow that's beautiful!" It's all hand watercolor paintings (with some post processing). Perhaps we hit the brightness/contrast buttons too hard.
The UI isn't something anyone has talked to me about so far, but have been struggling with it. I think it might be a bit obvious I made the game, and then tried to figure out how the UI goes. Not only that, there are several cases where I am trying to think up something that looks good, and a cartoony UI would make things easier to see but I haven't done it, thinking that it would seem out of place in the game. The UI is (mostly) hand drawn and painted too, actually.
You've given me a bit to think about! I had thought the difficulty ramped up too quickly, but I eventually got frustrated tuning it! I may replace the menus with something more cartoony. I'm currently working on making pop-up features to highlight some of the unique aspects of the game - my analytics tell me that very few people find Ella, so I keep modifying it to make it easier for her to find. And although I hate the idea of a window popping up and saying "go do this!", I'm starting realize why it is so common in games.
Thank you again for your wonderful review!