GAME TESTING REQUIREMENTS AND METHODS GAME DESIGN

A Day in the Life of a Video Game Tester

OBJECTIVES By the end of this lecture, you should be able to Name the two forms of testing Understand testing philosophy Know the testing planning and requirements Knew a few testing techniques Understand what a Test Plan is

WORDS TO KNOW Black Box Testing Clear Box Testing Regression Testing Systematic Testing Positive Testing Negative Testing Smoke Testing

WHY TEST ? Find Bugs!

TWO FORMS OF TESTING Clear Box Black Box Focuses on functional or the playability aspects of the game. For example, testing the user interface, the look and feel, the fun factor. Focuses on the architecture and integration aspects of the game. Such as the use of database, pipelines, the AI engine, the sound, and so on.

TESTING PHILOSOPHY Team Work Testing is done in teams. Quality is the number one goal. Testing plans are created and followed and tested be each game member. When a bug is found, a detailed report is created explaining exactly what happened leading up to the bug and the bugs behavior.

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS Identify the Testing Requirements The tester must understand the game requirements. The tester reads the system documentation and understand the goals and requirements of the game. From that information, a Testing Requirements document is created outlining how the game components will be tested.

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS Identify the Testing Requirements A list of features Specifics of the internal design and external designs of the game. Game’s theme The characters The AI Camera view

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS Identify the Testing Requirements A test structure detailing the use of Game Testing software. Testing criteria The completion criteria

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS Identify the Testing Requirements Once the requirements are identified and the Technical Director and QA Director approve it, each tester creates their own Test Plan and Test Cases based on the test requirements.

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS Define Timeline Requirements Timeline must include time for:  Testing each new or updated feature  Regression testing for each build  Regression testing of previously Critical, Closed bugs  Full regression testing for every event/world/environment and triggers in the game.

TESTING PLANNING AND REQUIREMENTS WAIT! ----Regression What? Regression Testing – Software testing that seeks to uncover new software bugs.

TESTING TECHNIQUES Game Components and Breakdown Structure Systematic Testing – Examining every part of a game which include: Menu, Art, Animation, Music, Camera, Game Flow, World/Level/Scene, Player attributes, Action attributes, Level conditions, Scoring, Progressive Level difficulty, AI logic, Statics, Title Screens, Non-Interactive Sequence, Special effect, Any movie clip, Game pad, Use of multi-button actions, ease of use of the button functions, shock/vibration effect of the game pad, use of digital and analog mode, legal text, and game options. I DID SAY EVERYTHING RIGHT?

TESTING TECHNIQUES Tips – N - Hints Just a few  Examine the entire screen  Test clipping where two or more polygons overlap  Test for inappropriate collision  Test load and saving  Test for “end of bound” or the edge of the world

TESTING TECHNIQUES Special Considerations Crack bugs- Not real bugs, but someone’s crazy imagination. Placeholder – Used to fill spots until the correct video, artwork, sound, or object is incorporated into the game.

TEST PLAN DEVELOPMENT Positive Testing Testing the functionality of the product. Negative Testing Testing the durability od level of tolerance resistance. This is where you try to break the game. For example, load the game without memory card, pulling out the memory card while the game is loading, running the game for more than 40 hours, etc. Smoke Testing Testing a new CD burn.

SOFTWARE TESTING Software Testing Processes (Just a few of them) Code Inspection – Review the source code Incremental Focus Testing – Testing chunks of code Data Analysis – Examine the database Path ad Flow testing – verify the correct sequence of objects

DIFFERENT PROJECT STAGES Requirement Stage – Game Idea, storyboard, and requirement document Game Design Stage – Conceptual design of the new features Technical Design Stage – Technical Design document and Feature Specification Development Stage – Clear box testing Review Stage – Both Clear box and Black Box testing Regression Testing Stage – Alpha, Beta, Final

TEST PLAN Test Plan Document Example