We`ve been hearing a lot about the emerging violence in video games and their contribution to children’s aggressive behavior, poor social skills, physical and mental damage. In 2014, the American Psychological Association posted research proving video games (including shooters) can be powerful boosters of socialization and brain development. Experts at the APA suggest a good game would strengthen cognitive skills: memory, reasoning, spatial navigation, and three-dimensional object perception.
Opinions differ, but what are the technical aspects that make a good game today? And what is the role of QA engineer in the process of creating a high-quality product for this billion-dollar industry?
Faultless Functionality
Deviations in functionality have an unfavorable impact on end-user experience. System crashing, progression blocks, or game freezing are the defects for a tester to keep in mind while checking the software. They evaluate the entire game map. Often, video game testers detect issues with audio, visuals, and graphical inconsistencies as a part of functionality tests. This is a thorough process where the QA engineers drive through the whole game again and again to find new defects in the environments. So, they keep track of the interface: search for missing colors, animation clippings, textual errors. At the same time, perfect game functionality is in its mood and style correspondence, and this is one more aspect for the testers to check.
Stunning User Interface
“Know your user” – that`s how a fundamental rule sounds. Usability is an everlasting common mission for any game, and QA experts must have a wide picture of a particular fan club or playing audience. Once the target audience is identified, it becomes easier to find the aspects consistent with the user. In a traditional application, navigation is almost the same, features and options locate in similar places. By contrast, games are bound to provide a variety of emotional experiences and include mechanisms that keep player`s interest.
“End-user fit” is another commandment for UI testing. While an app is expected to complete the tasks easily, player`s requirements differ. Imagine a game where your character tosses the ball and hits it. Several trials later, you win. It seems usable yet very boring. So, along with the simplicity, a professional game tester might recommend making it more challenging for an end-user to continue playing.
Some of the user interface tests are also busy with game speed, critical paths, camera angles mismatch, game status, visuals, and training mode.
Multiplayer Performance
Imagine a large game tournament: a lot of people, playing at the same time, several hours long. The participants compete in gaming skills, concept knowledge, strategic thinking, etc. The last thing they care about is the computational load of a game; high-level flow goes without saying. If a game hangs up at the different spots each time, game championship fails, users get upset. Doing performance check, online game testers usually measure loading time at the start and during the play. They also focus on speed making sure the user spends minimum time to complete each aspect of a game. The on-going game should run smoothly, and uninterrupted loading time is the first crucial point to check.
Widely known action-role RPGs require a bit different approach in testing, especially when it comes to Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) types. A defining characteristic of such game type is involving hundreds of players interacting at the same time, sharing the same space and objectives; the action takes place in real-time. The results depend on player`skills, speed, accuracy, or character attributes. That means hundreds of people interact with game servers and might critically overload the system. Multiplayer testing requires a team of QA engineers to find and test risky situations when playing simultaneously.
