Identifying whether a game is ready for use or not is essential for any game developer or game development company. The greatest of game ideas can fail, if there are errors or bugs in the end product that hamper the experience of the end users.
There are millions of apps on the App Store and Play Store and consumers are quick to uninstall those that do not match their expectations. It is also crucial to make your game stand out from the other games in the market. QA testing is not limited to just checking for bugs and errors in your game. True QA testing ensures that the fun factor is present in your games, the emotional connectivity that was intended is not lost, and the visual design, features and competitiveness come together to create a compelling experience for the players.
Below are the 7 types of Game Testing that you must conduct in order to create a game that stands out from the competition.
1. Functionality Testing
We use this to make sure the game is working according to the specifications. Focus is on identifying generic problems within a game, game asset integrity, stability, audio visual issues, user interface issues and problems with the game mechanics. In order to efficiently test functionality, a QA tester must consider issues like freezing, crashing and issues with game progression and user-friendliness of the game. A QA tester passes on these issues to the developer, who sends it back to the tester once the issues have been fixed so that re-testing can be done.
2. Combinatorial Testing
This testing method is very important to improve the effectiveness, quality and cost burden on test execution. It also allows a game development team to test the game at the earliest. The tester must analyse and scrutinise all the outputs and inputs in the game so that all combinations and outcomes can be identified. Hence test cases can be easily generated and tested efficiently.
3. Ad Hoc Testing
General Testing or ‘Ad hoc testing’ refers to the type of testing that is randomly conducted on a gaming application. This testing approach is more random in nature and is also called ‘error guessing’. Errors are not mapped to test cases and hence this is not a very structured approach to game testing. Hence this testing is recommended when there is a lack of time or once the other testing methods have been conducted.
4. Compatibility Testing
We perform this type of testing to make sure our game is compatible with all software, hardware and graphic requirements. It is essential to do this because games need to be optimised for different screen sizes and different versions of the software. Whether you are building for mobile or PC, this is a must. 5. Clean Room Testing
We apply this type of testing to develop gaming software with negligible errors. This approach looks to combine mathematical reasoning, design refinement and statistical reasoning during test case generation. The process involves QA testers creating tests that play the game just like the players. This helps them understand the player mindset better.
6. Regression testing
In this type of testing, test cases are re-checked to analyse the working of the previous functions of the app and that new changes have not introduced any new errors or vulnerabilities. The aim is to recheck whether the functions of the app works fine, or verify whether any changes have led to new bugs. Using regression testing, game teams could re-run the earlier conducted tests and compare results to observe if there are any errors.
7. Performance Testing
Conducting this type of testing helps to ensure whether the present infrastructure allows the smooth functioning of the game. Particularly, load testing is conducted to test whether the game is working properly under heavy load. Performance tuning is mainly performed to optimise product speed. Graphic performance, battery consumption, processor & memory constraints, network connectivity, and response time, are the significant parameters checked during performance testing.
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