Game Testing
In addition to game testing, such as video game testing, user experience testing, and playtesting described in the previous article, some more game testing types count as follows:
Automated Testing
A game testing company uses automated testing as a strategy throughout the development process. They run the particular simulations in a predetermined manner with automated systems and scripts. Thus, they eliminate human game testers' errors in testing situations.
Automated playtesting programs bots or agents to play games in a specific manner under some rules and limits. With these tools, the game-testing service can collect valued data and obtain some insights into some elements of games. The process brings some benefits to the game testing company. They can quickly scale these tools during the design stage and get consistent results. Also, they can repeat the same actions to solve glitches and problems that damage a game and the reputation of the game testing website. Since it isn't human involvement, basic testing is faster and free of bias.
With AI participation, automated playtesting provides more accuracy, takes less time, and produces the same insights with as few resources as possible.
Quality Assurance Testing
QA is short for quality assurance. As such, QA testing is to evaluate the quality of a game. The game testing company uses game testers to walk through games technically. In other words, the developer wants to examine users' experiences and reactions rather than rate games in depth and detail. Game testers try to find glitches and test how smoothly the gameplay runs.
Functionality Testing
The testing is to ensure the game functions as it should. Throughout the process, game testers provide all game functions that exist and work smoothly. It tests health stats, player inventory, and some critical elements. The test helps the testing company feel confident with connection to servers, downloading updates, and more.
Cleaning Room Testing
The process tests the game running in a real-world situation in which game testers set up many different hardware target audiences are playing. Tested platforms depend on the target audience. In other words, games are ready on cross-platforms. Testers play to check their PC, mobile, and game console performance.
Combinatorial Testing
As the name suggests, the testing includes simultaneous means which run in a game and evaluates how they impact each other. During the process, the game-testing website identifies unexpected issues until the developer fixes these issues. Also, the process will find problems related to interaction among gamers or with players' inventory.
Tree Testing
Gaming testers follow requirements to test various issues. This step divides functional requirements into different sets named tree testing. Testers must learn about other interaction aspects to reach a developer's goals.
Beta Testing
This is the final step of testing, where most things are evaluated. It means all tests are done before the release of a product. Beta testing comes up once 90%-95% of testing is completed. In other words, it ensures all devices run smoothly with other testing.
In the process, several gaming testers are selected to play a beta version. Sometimes, gamers are chosen by a professional company. Or they are volunteers.
Critical Elements to Notice
The complexity of a game requires meticulous evaluation. To avoid any upcoming issues, game developers and gaming testers work closely at every stage to ensure a game is perfect and hooks gamers' interest.
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In reality, there are some points a game developer must keep in mind, as follows:
Bug tracking: This is a process to log and monitor issues discovered in the game testing. A testing gamer records bugs with relevant details.
Test case creation: This process provides an outline that gaming testers strictly follow to evaluate every testing stage. A tester can jump back and forth to assess different sections.
Test suite creation: It's more essential than test case creation because it helps the game testing company understand the causes of bugs and glitches. Thanks to it, the developer can avoid these issues down the road.
Experience and thoughtfulness: Game testing not only focuses on gaming and fun but also requires the experience and thoughtfulness of testers. They must know about gaming functionality.
Final Thought
Game testing is a must-do thing a game developer must take advantage of. Developing a game includes a sea of lines of code. Due to the coding complexity, it contains hidden glitches that drastically affect a gaming company's fame, sales, and revenue.
Testing aims to bring gamers a great experience when playing games. In other words, it means simple interaction and an easily accessed menu.
The game testing company will have a fruitful success if they realize continuous testing throughout the development. They have to use all forms of testing, such as UX testing, playtesting, QA testing, and beta testing.