I decided to just write the GUI from scratch. This is kind of uncharted territory for me. I tried using pygame_gui but it felt really restrictive and the use of a json file for customization is absurd to me. I made a basic element abstract class so that all elements must have an update and draw method. I then made a button class and a container class. All elements have an ID, and when a button is clicked it sends out a pygame event, which is a feature I did like from pygame_gui. I think I will end up eventually making an UI manager class, as handling the state within the scene is getting clunky and weird.