Baruc
Green Slime
Hi! I’ve been playing Secrets of Grindea for a while now and noticed that the game’s menus could be more intuitive, especially for players using controllers. So, I’m sharing some thoughts and suggestions for improvements.
Note 1: I’m a recently graduated UX designer, and many of the points I’ll mention are small details that, overall, can significantly affect the user experience. I did this analysis both because I’m really enjoying the game and as a learning opportunity!
Note 2: My English isn’t perfect, so if anything is unclear, feel free to ask me for clarification.
1. Navigating Main Options
Players can access a tab by pressing the A/X button or [down arrow]. When someone enters a tab using the arrow, they subconsciously expect the [up arrow] to have a similar functionality, allowing them to exit the submenu and return to the main tabs. However, this doesn’t happen, which disrupts the flow and makes navigation less intuitive. Suggestion: Enable the [up arrow] to exit submenus or disable entering menus via the [down arrow].
2. Pet Menu
To access the pet menu, players have to go through the main menu. This creates an expectation that pressing B/O in the pet menu will take them back to the main menu, but instead, it closes both menus entirely. This can confuse players and disrupt their experience. Suggestion: Make it so that pressing B/O in the pet menu takes players back to the main menu instead of closing everything.
3. Equipment
When selecting an equipment slot, the “remove” option appears even if there’s nothing equipped. This can be confusing. Suggestion: Only display the “remove” option when there’s an item equipped.
4. Quick Shortcuts
There’s a lot of room for improvement here. Quick shortcuts are very useful, but their functionality is confusing, especially on controllers. It took me quite a while to figure out how they work, whereas the keyboard version is much more intuitive.
There are three wheels—Default, LT/L2, and RT/R2—but they’re inconsistent in how they work:
Default Wheel: By default, swords are associated with X/□ and shields with A/X. Whenever a weapon or shield is equipped/unequipped, it’s also added/removed from the corresponding shortcuts. However, while you can unequip items via the equipment menu, you can’t do this directly from the shortcuts menu, which feels strange. Suggestion: Allow the option to remove items directly in the shortcuts menu. Additionally, let players equip weapons directly via their dedicated shortcut slot since these interact with the equipment menu.
Still in the default wheel: Weapons and Magic/Consumables behave differently when equipped in shortcut slots. Magic and consumables are executed when their associated key is pressed, but weapons don’t behave this way. Instead, equipping a weapon via a shortcut replaces the currently equipped weapon, which can be confusing—especially since some items (like bows) resemble weapons but behave like consumables.
What’s even stranger is that this happens in the Default wheel as well. For example: I have a sword equipped on X/□ and another on B/O. If I press X/□, I’ll use the sword. If I press A/X, I’ll use the shield. If I press Y/Δ, I’ll use magic. But if I press B/O, I won’t use the weapon—it just replaces what’s on B/O with what’s on X/□.
Suggestion: Since shields and swords already have dedicated slots in the default wheel, make the remaining two slots exclusively for magic/consumables. For the LT/L2 and RT/R2 wheels, which don’t have these dedicated slots, the current system makes sense and can stay.
LT/L2 vs. RT/R2 Wheels: The LT/L2 wheel can be accessed directly using controller shortcuts (arrow keys) if enabled in the settings, but the RT/R2 wheel cannot. This inconsistency can confuse players, making them think RT/R2 can also be accessed via shortcuts.
Suggestion: Add an option in the settings allowing players to choose which wheel (LT/L2 or RT/R2) has shortcut access. This would provide more flexibility and avoid confusion.
5. Inventory
Weapon Details: I noticed that “1H” means “one-handed” and that the paper icon signifies a crafting material. Suggestion: For consistency, I’d recommend swapping the display order of these two icons. Since the crafting property varies while the weapon type is fixed, it makes more sense for the 1H/2H information to always appear first.
Filters: The current "Best" filter feels too subjective, as it depends on the player’s build and doesn’t apply to items that aren’t inherently better or worse. Here’s a suggestion for filters:
- New (perhaps rename to “Recent” for clarity)
- Alphabetical (A-Z)
- Crafting Materials (since many items are recipe components, this would be very helpful)
- Type (a weapon-specific filter when both weapon types are active)
6. Item Descriptions/Details
Viewing an item’s properties isn’t very intuitive. Currently, the description only shows how much the item increases or decreases your stats, not the base stats of the item itself. This makes it difficult to compare different items, especially those in shortcut slots.
Suggestion: Add an option to display both views—stat increases/decreases and the item’s raw stats. Alternatively, display the current character stats next to the modified stats for better context.
Items with Special Effects: Some equipment with special effects doesn’t specify what those effects are. The item includes a general description, but it doesn’t detail the specific effect—it’s more about the item’s lore. I’m not sure if this is intentional to encourage players to discover the effects by equipping the item, but if it isn’t, I have a suggestion: just like abilities have a “more information” option, these special items could have one too.
7. Talking Bag Tips/tutorial
The talking bag offers tips throughout the game. Suggestion: It would be great to have a menu where players can revisit these tips. This would help when players forget game mechanics or miss a message during gameplay.
8. Crafting Menu
As the game progresses, the list of craftable items grows significantly. Currently, players need to scroll through the list to find items they can craft. Suggestion: Adding a filter for items that are craftable (or close to being craftable) would be very helpful.
9. Skills/Talents Menu
When selecting “Equip Skill” in the shortcuts menu, players are taken to the skills and talents menu. This can be confusing because it might make players think talents are equipable when they’re actually passive abilities.
Suggestion: Disable access to the talents menu when choosing “Equip Skill” in the shortcuts menu to avoid confusion.
10. System Menu
This is a visual feedback detail. The save/exit option brings up a blank screen, and if the player doesn’t notice the description box in the bottom-left corner (which can be easily overlooked), they might be unsure what to do or think the game has broken. Suggestion: Add a simple on-screen prompt, like “Press A/X to confirm save and return to the main menu.”
11. Quick Access to Map
Console players should have a dedicated button for quick map access. Suggestion: If LB/L1 isn’t being used, it could serve this purpose. Alternatively, the Select button could open the map. If someone is playing offline solo, they likely won’t need the chat feature currently tied to Select. Adding an option to swap chat for map access in the settings would be a great solution.
And that’s it! Quite a lot of stuff—it took me a good amount of time, but it was fun to analyze. I hope it’s helpful for you and helps make the game even better!
Note 1: I’m a recently graduated UX designer, and many of the points I’ll mention are small details that, overall, can significantly affect the user experience. I did this analysis both because I’m really enjoying the game and as a learning opportunity!
Note 2: My English isn’t perfect, so if anything is unclear, feel free to ask me for clarification.
1. Navigating Main Options
Players can access a tab by pressing the A/X button or [down arrow]. When someone enters a tab using the arrow, they subconsciously expect the [up arrow] to have a similar functionality, allowing them to exit the submenu and return to the main tabs. However, this doesn’t happen, which disrupts the flow and makes navigation less intuitive. Suggestion: Enable the [up arrow] to exit submenus or disable entering menus via the [down arrow].
2. Pet Menu
To access the pet menu, players have to go through the main menu. This creates an expectation that pressing B/O in the pet menu will take them back to the main menu, but instead, it closes both menus entirely. This can confuse players and disrupt their experience. Suggestion: Make it so that pressing B/O in the pet menu takes players back to the main menu instead of closing everything.
3. Equipment
When selecting an equipment slot, the “remove” option appears even if there’s nothing equipped. This can be confusing. Suggestion: Only display the “remove” option when there’s an item equipped.
4. Quick Shortcuts
There’s a lot of room for improvement here. Quick shortcuts are very useful, but their functionality is confusing, especially on controllers. It took me quite a while to figure out how they work, whereas the keyboard version is much more intuitive.
There are three wheels—Default, LT/L2, and RT/R2—but they’re inconsistent in how they work:
Default Wheel: By default, swords are associated with X/□ and shields with A/X. Whenever a weapon or shield is equipped/unequipped, it’s also added/removed from the corresponding shortcuts. However, while you can unequip items via the equipment menu, you can’t do this directly from the shortcuts menu, which feels strange. Suggestion: Allow the option to remove items directly in the shortcuts menu. Additionally, let players equip weapons directly via their dedicated shortcut slot since these interact with the equipment menu.
Still in the default wheel: Weapons and Magic/Consumables behave differently when equipped in shortcut slots. Magic and consumables are executed when their associated key is pressed, but weapons don’t behave this way. Instead, equipping a weapon via a shortcut replaces the currently equipped weapon, which can be confusing—especially since some items (like bows) resemble weapons but behave like consumables.
What’s even stranger is that this happens in the Default wheel as well. For example: I have a sword equipped on X/□ and another on B/O. If I press X/□, I’ll use the sword. If I press A/X, I’ll use the shield. If I press Y/Δ, I’ll use magic. But if I press B/O, I won’t use the weapon—it just replaces what’s on B/O with what’s on X/□.
Suggestion: Since shields and swords already have dedicated slots in the default wheel, make the remaining two slots exclusively for magic/consumables. For the LT/L2 and RT/R2 wheels, which don’t have these dedicated slots, the current system makes sense and can stay.
LT/L2 vs. RT/R2 Wheels: The LT/L2 wheel can be accessed directly using controller shortcuts (arrow keys) if enabled in the settings, but the RT/R2 wheel cannot. This inconsistency can confuse players, making them think RT/R2 can also be accessed via shortcuts.
Suggestion: Add an option in the settings allowing players to choose which wheel (LT/L2 or RT/R2) has shortcut access. This would provide more flexibility and avoid confusion.
5. Inventory
Weapon Details: I noticed that “1H” means “one-handed” and that the paper icon signifies a crafting material. Suggestion: For consistency, I’d recommend swapping the display order of these two icons. Since the crafting property varies while the weapon type is fixed, it makes more sense for the 1H/2H information to always appear first.
Filters: The current "Best" filter feels too subjective, as it depends on the player’s build and doesn’t apply to items that aren’t inherently better or worse. Here’s a suggestion for filters:
- New (perhaps rename to “Recent” for clarity)
- Alphabetical (A-Z)
- Crafting Materials (since many items are recipe components, this would be very helpful)
- Type (a weapon-specific filter when both weapon types are active)
6. Item Descriptions/Details
Viewing an item’s properties isn’t very intuitive. Currently, the description only shows how much the item increases or decreases your stats, not the base stats of the item itself. This makes it difficult to compare different items, especially those in shortcut slots.
Suggestion: Add an option to display both views—stat increases/decreases and the item’s raw stats. Alternatively, display the current character stats next to the modified stats for better context.
Items with Special Effects: Some equipment with special effects doesn’t specify what those effects are. The item includes a general description, but it doesn’t detail the specific effect—it’s more about the item’s lore. I’m not sure if this is intentional to encourage players to discover the effects by equipping the item, but if it isn’t, I have a suggestion: just like abilities have a “more information” option, these special items could have one too.
7. Talking Bag Tips/tutorial
The talking bag offers tips throughout the game. Suggestion: It would be great to have a menu where players can revisit these tips. This would help when players forget game mechanics or miss a message during gameplay.
8. Crafting Menu
As the game progresses, the list of craftable items grows significantly. Currently, players need to scroll through the list to find items they can craft. Suggestion: Adding a filter for items that are craftable (or close to being craftable) would be very helpful.
9. Skills/Talents Menu
When selecting “Equip Skill” in the shortcuts menu, players are taken to the skills and talents menu. This can be confusing because it might make players think talents are equipable when they’re actually passive abilities.
Suggestion: Disable access to the talents menu when choosing “Equip Skill” in the shortcuts menu to avoid confusion.
10. System Menu
This is a visual feedback detail. The save/exit option brings up a blank screen, and if the player doesn’t notice the description box in the bottom-left corner (which can be easily overlooked), they might be unsure what to do or think the game has broken. Suggestion: Add a simple on-screen prompt, like “Press A/X to confirm save and return to the main menu.”
11. Quick Access to Map
Console players should have a dedicated button for quick map access. Suggestion: If LB/L1 isn’t being used, it could serve this purpose. Alternatively, the Select button could open the map. If someone is playing offline solo, they likely won’t need the chat feature currently tied to Select. Adding an option to swap chat for map access in the settings would be a great solution.
And that’s it! Quite a lot of stuff—it took me a good amount of time, but it was fun to analyze. I hope it’s helpful for you and helps make the game even better!
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