Testing plays a crucial role in the entire game development lifecycle and its contribution to the successful launch of the game cannot be ignored. It can be termed as a process to ensure optimum quality of video games and prevent the gamer from experiencing any unnecessary glitch or bug. Game testing is important to maintain the overall quality and user experience for video games. Testing can be a repetitive process as after every development cycle there might be bugs and hence should be detected thoroughly.
You can also outsource your entire game testing process to game testing companies to ensure a bug-free and high-quality gaming experience for your players.In this blog, we are going to see the different types of game testing along with the importance of a game tester.
NEED OF A GAME TESTER
A game tester is a person who is responsible to identify and detect any unwanted events or glitches the user may experience and report them immediately to the developer.
The extensive game testing process involves multiple levels and layers of testing and it is a rigorous activity involving constant reporting of glitches to ensure a bug-free game. It is also important to provide a user perspective while testing for which a professional tester is required.
- Clarity to the Developer: A tester’s clear projection of bugs, highlighting of evidence makes it easy for the developer to analyze and resolve bugs in the game.
- Reduce difficulty levels: Game tester provides the desired feedback to the developer. Any expert suggestion from the testing team may help to analyze the problem area at an early stage and thus reduce redundancy.
STAGES OF GAME TESTING
There are different stages through which a game passes before getting in the market for video game players. It is important to pass it through these stages as they involve extensive testing and can reduce any flaws or bugs in the game.
- Alpha Testing:
In Alpha testing, Testing is done parallel to the development phase. It helps the developers to acknowledge and resolve bugs at an early stage reducing any chance of flaws or glitches. In this, documentation of any type is reported to get it done before production.
It might be a bit of workload for the tester in this phase as the entire game is still in production and some of the game functionalities or UI may be in progress but a tester can provide some inputs in this phase to improve the functionality of the game.
- Beta Testing:
Testing in the Beta phase is done when the game is almost developed and is ready for production or official launch. In beta game testing, the game goes through different types of testing such as stress or compliance testing to look out for any major or minor glitches in the game. There are generally two ways of Beta Testing:
- Closed Beta Testing: Done with a set of people working closely with game developers. And this stage involves a limited number of testers to begin with.
- Open beta Testing: This happens in a group of people who are interested in the game before it’s official launch. Based on the reviews and feedback of the players, changes are initiated before the release of the game software.
TYPE OF GAME TESTING:
Let us now look at the different types of game testing done to ensure a high-quality end game.
- Functional Testing:
Functional testing in video games is done following the specifications mentioned in the manual or documentation process. This testing helps to identify flaws related to graphics, user interface, design, audio, and visuals and all obvious looking issues on the way while completing the gameplay objectives.
Functionality QA testers check for the generic problems within the game such as buttons, links, navigation, colors, background, audio, visuals, fonts, layout, measurements, loading time, animations, implementation of virtual items, interaction with the game environment and so on. This list varies depending on the game genre and features involved.
- Compatibility Testing:
Game compatibility testing ensures the game application works efficiently on the target platforms and devices. A list of important hardware software is given by the development company to the tester upon which testing is done to ensure the game runs smoothly on different hardware and software. It is to check the compatibility across different devices, platforms, and other configurations. Usually this is where the minimum required configuration and recommended hardware configuration is tested and confirmed.
- Compliance Testing:
Compliance testing refers to reporting anything that may violate the standards set by different authorities concerning game launch. It is the responsibility of the tester to notify of any error such as legal trademarked or copyrighted content if any within the game module. Even a single violation while submitting for license approval may cause total rejection of the game. Testers must report any objectionable content that is inappropriate for the target audience.
- Localization Testing:
It is done if your game is being made available for a global audience and players. In this case, there is a need to translate titles, text, and content based on the local language and test on devices with multi-language support.
- Soak Testing:
In this testing, the game is left running idle for long hours to check for any memory leaks or rounding errors. Detection can be made when the game is paused, or idling.
- Regression Testing:
Regression testing is done once the developer has resolved the previously reported bugs. The QA team checks if the resolved(or claimed to be fixed by developers) bugs are persisting. Tester also runs similar test cases to check if something else is distorted or not with the current bug fix. It is used to check for any updates, improvements, or changes that happened after the bug has been fixed and checks for the overall functionality and stability of the game. With the help of a regression testing tool, one can ensure systematic retesting and regression testing.
- Load Testing:
This testing is done to check if multiple players to a large number of concurrent players can access and play the game smoothly. It helps to know the scalability of the existing infrastructure and checks the limit of the system.
Conclusion:
Testing ensures that the final video game product is of targeted standards and there are no instant and obvious negative impressions created in front of the audience. No game product can be perfect or free from bugs but with the right efforts around testing, game studios can surely provide a great user experience.
