The menu and the party display was turned off for the fountain part, but you're saying when you exited the area, the menu/party didnt return?
(I know I should have enabled it right away, rather than waiting for you to exit, as it felt weird to have it still disabled until you left. But I saved that for later, due to time constraints. But if it still didnt enable, im curious as to what may have happened. Thank you, I'll look into it.)
Oh I should also mention, you're correct in that there was very limit amounts of cash(candy) to be spending, but the last shop NPC was there in case you either missed one of the good items, as they are all found somewhere, or if you wanted a 2nd one, of the same item.but since they can be quite powerful, I made sure you couldnt buy too many, and maybe just 1, depending on how much candy you have. Which I think the max you would have by the end is like 500~ish (Of course this requires knowing all the secret spots etc)
(EDIT: I also tried a game with 3 witches and with the right build/items, I actually found the combination to be quite overpowering. I had to edit some content, due to how powerful 3 witches were by the end. But You do need to know the games secrets, in order to maximize their potential, otherwise they might be one of the weakest options to start out with)