Day 2:
Loaded up with anti-inflammatory meds for my old back, managed to get a little bit done this evening. Had a go at making a "home" screen that would not proceed with dialogue when clicking elsewhere on the screen (unless the 'cont' button in the top corner is pressed, for now. it also serves as a rudimentary 'home' button, although that's not its intended use).
Looks like garbage right now, but working as intended more or less. This is a combination of vbox and hbox screens, with a bunch of imagebuttons that call and hide other screens to simulate the idea of opening folders. I'm not completely sure why the brown/pink boxes move around like that right now, though. I tied hiding screens to the button press itself but it doesn't seem to make a difference.... Hmm.
MID-POST UPDATE: it's because there were fewer boxes on the bottom row in the brown screen (2 boxes) than there were in the blue/pink ones(4 boxes)!! why does this change things? No damn clue!! my gut tells me it's something to do with how ren'py automatically spaces/pads buttons, or something... but at least I know now. worst comes to worst, I can make invisible unclickable buttons, I suppose? A problem for tomorrow.