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how to test a game
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| babomr@gmail.com 2005-12-03, 3:59 am |
| i have been assigned to do black box testing on a game and i don't
have any specification. So how should i go bout it? Should I check the
functionality or portability and configuration as well. I really new to
game testing. Suggest me with some tips.
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| Michael Bolton 2005-12-03, 7:02 pm |
| You shouldn't necessarily check for portability; if there's no
possibility that the game will be ported to other platforms, then
you'll be wasting effort. How do you figure out whether portability is
a concern? Ask your client--the person for whom you are doing the
testing--whether portability is important.
It's hard to imagine how you could test without touching functionality
at some point, but deciding to focus on it is usually a good decision.
Consider the quality criteria in James Bach's Heuristic Test Strategy
Model: capability, reliability (including security), usability,
scalability, performance, installability, compatibility,
supportability, testability, maintainability, portability, and
localizability. Use this list to help guide the development of test
ideas. Model the product in as many ways as is feasible, and model the
things around it similarly broadly. For example, instead of just
thinking of "the customer", think about the wide range of different
people who might choose to purchase the game; play the game (expert
players of this game, novice players of this game; those experts or
novices that have played games like this one, but not this one; those
who help to install or supervise the game players (i.e. parents). The
greater number of quality criteria you can think of, and the greater
number of ways that you can model the game or its players, the more
likely you are to find things that are important to somebody.
---Michael B.
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| babomr wrote:
> i have been assigned to do black box testing on a game and i don't
> have any specification. So how should i go bout it? Should I check the
> functionality or portability and configuration as well. I really new to
> game testing. Suggest me with some tips.
The field of _manual_ testing for games is well described, under "Quality
Control". That provides feedback on playability and script bugs.
I hope you mean automated testing, because that is more important for code
quality, and should appear higher in the food chain.
The technical term for this page is "advertisement", but it's written to
give away its best stuff:
http://www.zeroplayer.com/gameTestServer.html
It links to a paper describing this topic:
- add a command line argument to your games:
- to play one level
- to play randomly, in god mode
- to play for a given number of frames
- to record all low level behavior to the log
Now write a script, in a soft rapid language like Ruby or Python, that reads
a list of levels and tests each one. The test should invoke the latest
version of the game, with each of those command line arguments turned on.
The script waits for the game to finish, then scrapes its log file. The
script can now send out an e-mail with each Error and Warning statement in
the log.
That simple framework now permits you to add all kinds of hooks and extras,
as your team finds they need them. For example, the list of levels (maybe in
XML or YAML) can include the test levels that don't ship with the game. The
list can also include pointers to scripts that a game level can run.
Because the hero is running around randomly, she or he might do things that
a manual tester is too smart to do, like jump into a feed trough. If the
character gets stuck, the script can read the character's XYZ location in
the log, and detect this situation.
--
Phlip
[url]http://www.greencheese.org/Z Land[/url] <-- NOT a blog!!!
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| babomr@gmail.com 2005-12-05, 3:59 am |
| thanks phlip for your suggestions. The game that i have to test is a
MMO RPG application. please help me out with few more suggestions to
test it. Is there any particular tool for testing MMO RPG games or will
it be wise to stick with mannual testing.
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| babomr wrote:
> thanks phlip for your suggestions. The game that i have to test is a
> MMO RPG application. please help me out with few more suggestions to
> test it. Is there any particular tool for testing MMO RPG games or will
> it be wise to stick with mannual testing.
Manual testing is QA. All code must support automated testing, so
programmers don't need to waste so much time debugging. No off-the-shelf
tool can magically do this for your game.
Post a complete question to a forum that discusses games. I have only tested
one, and in only one way!
--
Phlip
[url]http://www.greencheese.org/ZLand[/url] <-- NOT a blog!!!
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