Game testing

Game testing is an exciting part of the game development process. There are a huge number of amazing video games on the market, but all of them have gone through a rigorous testing procedure before being released. During this process, testers try to uncover bugs and glitches such as invisible walls, garbled characters, incorrect netcode, missing textures, unbalanced weapons, map holes, long load times, and sluggish controls. Quality assurance is a very important part of the game development process as it ensures that the gameplay is smooth, fun, and free of nasty hiccups.

Stages of the main game testing process
In order to successfully identify bugs in a game, testers follow a few basic steps.

 - Planning and development of the test. This is the first step in the game testing process.

TIP: To complete this step, you can help yourself with questions such as: What has changed in the design spec since the last build? What new configurations will the game support? What additional test cases have been added? What features have been cut?

 - Prepare for testing. Game owners or publishers prepare the documents and test environments that testers need to begin testing the game.

 - Carry out testing. The test suites are run with a new build. If a bug is found, run as many tests as possible in its environment to get all the details that will then be reported.

 - Report results. At this stage, a report is compiled with all the errors and shortcomings found.

 - Bug fix. The found error is discussed by the entire testing team together with the game development team, and the correct solution is found.

Game Testing Methods and Strategies
The game testing process can be carried out in several ways, and these methods can be called strategies. The most common strategies used by game testers are:

1. Ad-hoc testing

Ad-Hoc testing is free form testing. This technique requires the game tester to be relaxed, forget the checklist, and feel at home playing on the computer. The only difference, however, is that it focuses on finding bugs and bugs. Ad-Hoc testing allows you to find bugs that would otherwise not be found.

"Ad-hoc testing is very important for the types of games that Obsidian releases. I've found that using test plans and checklists can pick up obvious bugs on the surface of the game, but the most nasty bugs seem to show up during ad-hoc sessions." Brandon Adler (QA Lead, Obsidian Entertainment)

2. Functionality testing

The role of this technique is to show whether the final game works according to the original specifications. Typically, general graphics and user interface errors, sound, or mechanical issues are tracked. This stage does not take into account whether the game is fun or not, but focuses on the main elements that must be functional.

3. Compatibility testing

This game testing method shows if a game is optimized for all different screen sizes and also if the final product meets the basic software, hardware and graphics requirements.

4. Progression testing (Test for passing)

When using this technique, they try to reach the end of the game without any interruptions. Game testers are looking for crashes and freezes during a linear game playthrough. Approximately 99% of the time breaks in drilling are caused by problems with scripts. The remaining 1% is caused by particularly nasty places where you can get stuck.

5. Regression testing

Once the developers fix a bug, it's fixed forever. ... in an ideal world. But the reality is that even if a bug is fixed, it can easily spawn other bugs. To get rid of this problem, regression testing is great. With this technique, game testers look for old bugs in current code. While this kind of testing doesn't seem like a big deal, regression testing can solve annoying problems that create certain headaches.

Collaborate with the best professionals for effective game testing

If you want your video game testing to be truly effective, partner with true professionals in the field. With extensive experience in the video game industry, Kevuru Games https://kevurugames.com/game-development/game-qa-testing-services/ provides QA testing services for multi-platform games during prototyping, development, soft launch and post-release. It's important to make sure your game is as bug-free as possible before launch, so if you're looking for QA testing services that exceed your expectations, don't hesitate to contact us.