I have been able to implement a form of pausing where you can press the Q button and pause the game. When you pause, a specific sprite appears in order to tell you the game has been paused:
I also added a 'W' key as a button to interact with items like sinks and doors.
Touching the sink & pressing the 'W' key allows a person to wash their hands (restoring you to full health), but also causes all of the germs that have been defeated or disappeared when you got hit by them to reappear and become threats once again.
I also added another potential sprite to the 'virus' enemy called the bacteria sprite:
I am also adding parts to a menu you can visit at any time that provides instructions for how to play:
Going to keep working on this alpha model of the game until I have put in about a full six hours into this project. Stay tuned!
