Porting a game to different platforms can be a challenging and rewarding process, but it also requires careful testing to ensure quality and compatibility. How can you test your game effectively during the porting process? Here are some strategies that can help you avoid common pitfalls and deliver a smooth and enjoyable experience to your players.
Before you start porting your game, you need to have a clear plan of what platforms you want to target, what features and functionalities you want to support, and what tools and frameworks you want to use. You also need to research the technical specifications, requirements, and limitations of each platform, and how they differ from your original platform. This will help you identify potential issues and risks, and prioritize your tasks and resources accordingly.
Testing during porting? It's all about 'break it to make it.' Rigorous QA, targeted stress tests, and real-world scenarios reveal weak spots. Think beyond the code, it's about delivering an impeccable gaming experience on every platform.
Automation can save you a lot of time and effort when testing your game across multiple platforms. You can use tools and scripts to automate tasks such as building, deploying, running, and monitoring your game on different devices and environments. You can also use automation to perform regression testing, which checks if your game still works as expected after making changes or updates. Automation can help you catch bugs and errors early, and reduce human error and inconsistency.
While automation and emulation can be useful, they cannot replace testing your game on real devices. Real devices can reveal issues that may not be detected by automation or emulation, such as performance, compatibility, input, display, sound, and network problems. You should test your game on a variety of devices that represent the target audience and market of each platform, and cover different models, specifications, and configurations. You should also test your game in different scenarios and conditions, such as low battery, poor connectivity, interruptions, and background processes.
User testing is a vital part of testing your game during the porting process. User testing can provide you with valuable feedback and insights on how your game is perceived and experienced by different types of players on different platforms. You can involve users in various ways, such as beta testing, focus groups, surveys, interviews, analytics, and reviews. You should listen to your users' opinions and suggestions, and use them to improve your game's usability, accessibility, functionality, and appeal.
Porting your game to different platforms does not mean simply copying and pasting your code and assets. You need to adapt and optimize your game to suit the specific characteristics and expectations of each platform. You may need to make changes to your game's design, graphics, sound, interface, controls, features, content, and monetization. You should also optimize your game's performance, memory, loading, battery, network, and security. You should aim to provide a consistent and coherent experience across platforms, while also taking advantage of the unique opportunities and advantages of each platform.
Ports are probably the easiest to test because there is something to compare to. But therein also lies a trap, as expectations for capabilities of the platform, higher or lower, can create confusion. Be sure to create a port GDD that summarizes the choices made when porting that will differentiate the game and adjust whatever test cases may have been imported.