The service is called Mappex and it is already accepting applications for early access.
Sample interface of Mappex
According to its creator, the proposed system will allow for a detailed analysis of game design and player feedback for any given project. It will automatically group data by various criteria, calculate figures, highlight key points, and even offer recommendations for improvement.
“Now the industry will have the opportunity to examine in detail everything people think about certain game features: why a particular boss didn’t resonate well with players, whether an experiment was successful, and what the sequel excelled in. Noteworthy insights can be turned into a draft for a video, a design document, or exported to Linear with just two clicks if you are a developer,” writes Kelin.
Sample interface of Mappex
The blogger emphasizes a problem in the industry where developers clone popular games without considering which decisions led those projects to success. This often results in missing the main points.
“I've said many times that blindly copying the click-click-dash combat and building system of Hades, while ignoring the aspects that make it genuinely good, is a bad idea. But (…) developers keep doing it, and inevitably face failure,” Kelin notes.
Sample interface of Mappex
The idea behind Mappex is to address this problem. It helps to see how the audience reacts to each element of a game.
“The Very Kelin” is a niche resource with an audience of over 100,000 people devoted to the analysis and deconstruction of action game design (primarily roguelikes and Metroidvanias).