COIT23003 Games Development Quality Assurance

References Meigs, T., 2003. Ultimate Game Design: Building Game Worlds, McGraw Hill. Rabin, S. (ed.). Introduction to Game Development, Charles River Media, 2005.

The Game Design Lifecycle 3 Phases: Concept (output = game concept) Elaboration (output = entire design) Tuning (output = “polished” design) Outputs for Phases 2 and 3 would normally include prototype software Precedes the development/production phase of the game lifecyle

The Game Lifecycle Game development lifecycle consists of two streams: Design Stream Concept Elaboration Tuning Pre-Production Production Post Production Production Stream Game development lifecycle consists of two streams: A design stream A production stream

The Production Stream (Rabin, 2005) Preproduction Production Secure finance, determine budget, determine resource requirements, develop schedule … Follows on from concept stage of design stream Production Follows on from tuning stage of design stream Game is created Typically consists of 3 stages (alpha, beta, gold master) Postproduction Bugs fixed, game tweaked, package and manual created (Rabin, 2005)

The Production Stage Alpha Stage Beta Stage Gold Master All required features of the design implemented, but not necessarily working in the desired manner Beta Stage All features delivered in the alpha stage are working and locked down. Final sound effects, music, voice added. Gold Master Copy protection, device drivers added, installation software integrated

Why Gold Master? Named after the gold-coloured recordable discs originally used to send final mastering assets to the publisher for mass duplication

Quality Assurance: Design Incorporate stakeholder feedback on concept/design documents and prototypes Same principle applies as in Software Engineering – catch problems as early in the lifecycle as possible

Quality Assurance: Production Alpha stage: incorporate gameplay feedback from focus groups/testers, design team, publisher …) Perform functionality testing (requires formal test plans) Beta Stage: Perform testing on any added content Public testing if appropriate

Console Games vs PC Games Console games will require Conformance testing to meet platform standards More rigorous testing as patching is problematic