While video games appear as finished products once they are released, developing a dependable game is impossible without thorough testing. The term "game testing" refers to the examination of a game for technical issues, bugs, confusing interfaces, and other potential flaws prior to and after a release.
The evaluation of whether a game meets quality requirements is known as quality assurance, or QA. Testing can involve investigating crashes, texture glitches, unfinished quests, animation errors, sound issues, or difficulties with multiplayer connectivity. Tests ensure that players are able to meet game objectives and that any updates do not bring any more problems.
Testing is not all about discovering flaws and errors. Game testers can find issues such as confusing instructions and a lack of balance in some aspects of the game and discover situations in which the player gets stuck, and cannot figure out the reason why.
Testing modern games is particularly difficult because a wide variety of factors may play a role in making sure the game works well, such as various platforms and worlds, online components, and numerous updates. A game may work perfectly fine on one computer but have some issues on another due to different hardware
Knowing how game testing works will allow gamers to understand the effort that goes into creating a release, while future developers get their first glimpse into the industry.
Different Types of Game Testing
The game testing involves various types of testing techniques that help reveal problems belonging to specific categories. In most cases, the development team uses several testing techniques to check their game comprehensively.
Functional testing is done to make sure that features work properly. During functional testing, testers could ensure that menus work as expected, weapons operate according to the description, mission is updated appropriately, and save data could be loaded.
Compatibility testing is used to test the performance of the game on all possible hardware, operating systems, video cards, controllers, and screen resolutions. The compatibility testing of PC games is especially significant due to diverse configurations of player's systems.
Performance testing measures the performance aspects such as the frame rate, loading time, memory usage, and stability. This type of testing could help developers explore stuttering, overheating-related performance issues, or crashes because of resource restrictions.
Multiplayer testing tests various systems associated with online connectivity, matchmaking, synchronization, servers, and players' interactions. Multiplayer testing could be problematic because it is hard to repeat some network conditions.
Regression testing is used to determine if any already implemented functionality continues to work in light of the alteration. In other words, a programmer can fix one quest and break the other one by doing this, which is why already tested sections of a game should be retested.
Lastly, usability testing allows determining if users comprehend game mechanics.
How Testers Find and Report Bugs
Discovering a bug is merely the first step in the testing process. The tester needs to provide detailed information about the discovered problem to enable developers to recreate it, identify its root causes, and fix it.
An ordinary report usually contains the version of the game being tested, the platform, the type of hardware used, the actions required to make the problem appear, what was expected, what actually happened, and sometimes, additional details like screenshots, videos, or logs.
For instance, if a player falls through the ground upon entering a certain building, an effective bug report will explain where this happened, what the user had done to make it happen, if it repeats, and if restarting the game makes any difference. Telling that “the map is broken” does not give any additional details to developers.
Some teams can classify problems by their severity and priority. While an application crash that prevents players from moving forward should be a high-priority bug, an aesthetic error that has almost no impact on the gameplay is usually considered low-priority.
After making an alteration, the tester tries to replicate the bug using the same procedure. If it does not exist anymore, the tester might try to test other features near that one to see if there have been any unwanted changes due to the modification.
Effective communication plays an important role. It helps save time and eliminate guessing.
Manual Testing Versus Automated Testing
In manual testing, the user actually plays the game or uses tools for testing specific aspects of it. Humans are better at spotting difficult instructions, unrealistic movements, frustrating interactions, or odd behavior that automated tests may miss.
It helps especially in testing the feel of the game. The tester is able to determine whether the mechanics have been explained well in the tutorial, whether the objective is clear, or whether the user interface causes unnecessary confusion.
In automated testing, tests are done with help of certain programs or even specially designed testing software. It could be as simple as checking whether the menu works, whether the file has been loaded, or whether a certain action results in certain behavior. Automating testing can be very useful in case developers need to perform repetitive tests because of constant changes to their game.
However, automated tests come with their drawbacks. They only verify what they were designed to verify, and they might fail to notice anything unusual or subjective issues. Moreover, developing reliable test automation takes time and skills.
A combination of manual and automated testing is usually optimal. While automation can take care of monotonous tasks, manual testing allows people to spend more time examining complex interactions and the player experience as a whole.
The ideal ratio varies from case to case. A small independent game will require mainly manual testing, but an online game will require automated testing for its basic functionality.
Why Games Still Have Bugs at Launch
Even after rigorous testing, there may be errors that remain even at the time when the game reaches its consumers. This is because modern-day video games are very complex pieces of software that make testing all possible combinations of actions, hardware, settings, and other online conditions impossible most of the times.
Users always tend to do something unexpected. Users can do things in a sequence that may have not been anticipated by the developers of the game in question. Such activities can lead to problems which are not covered under usual test cases.
There are many different configurations on PC. Different graphics drivers, processors, memory configurations, running programs, and updates to the operating systems can all influence the behavior of the game.
Sometimes, deadlines can also cause problems in the development process. Sometimes, the games get new updates or additions late into the development process which makes some already tested parts of the game vulnerable once again.
Some issues become noticeable only after many thousands of users start using online services at once. The high load on servers can bring up bottlenecks which were not noticeable during smaller tests.
The post-release patching allows developers to fix new problems, although sometimes updates may cause regressions. Users may assist with reporting bugs in a professional manner. Good bug reporting is beneficial for the developers, as it provides them with valuable information.
How to Start Learning Game Testing
Game testing could be considered a useful place to begin if you want to learn about video game development. This kind of work allows for developing your attention to detail, problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and your knowledge about the behavior of software.
As a beginner, you could try testing games that you already have. Pick one of the features, such as saving your progress, completing a task, adjusting graphics, or using a gamepad. Do various actions and write down the results that do not match your expectations.
Try writing professional bug reports where you would provide information about the required actions to trigger a problem, expected and real results, and necessary pieces of evidence. Make your observations objective and do not consider every possible inconvenience as a problem with software.
Acquiring basic knowledge on testing is helpful as well. Useful subjects include test cases, regression testing, severity levels, compatibility testing, and the processes of bug tracking.
While preparing a portfolio, make sure you have proper references from games or projects that you are allowed to play. Never reveal any confidential information obtained during a private testing project and never claim that a problem is reproduced if you have not reproduced it.
To our GamersPulse readers, a guide on game testing can be very helpful if it features examples, screenshots, and reproducible steps. Testing a game is not only about playing it for fun but also about analyzing its behavior and assisting in delivering a more reliable product.