Hello I noticed that in your improve section you mentioned animations and also in bugs you mentioned a fade in issue. I am assuming that you are using JPanels and Frames that implement button action listeners to call upon these said animations.
I am not able to find you code for where this occurs and if you could point out where it is I can take a look.
Anyway other than the animations libraries for java I think a way to get a fade in effect is to use the graphics engine and simply paint a black frame that lowers in opacity giving it the fade animation. This would occur with a for loop that starts with 100 (max opacity) and the "i" in the for loop decreases which is set to the opacity of the graphics black screen. This may be too fast so a timer or a delay may be necessary.
This is all assuming that you do not already have a fade in implemented.
Otherwise I would love to take a look at the code if you could direct me.
Thanks.