An introduction to Game Testing

In the early times, when video games was holding the monopoly of the gaming market, there was very limited scope of the games. So only the developers were solely responsible for the testing of the game. As we know video games are a fun/ entertainment software, so the game testing perspective are quite different from other software. Its not very old news when world went crazy for Pokemon-Go and now Super-Mario Run. It clearly signifies that gaming has and can never loose its charm for people round the globe and has become the largest industry.

Game testing although quite different from the the general software testing but still it inherits all the general/ basic aspects of software testing. On the first and primary basis game testing is considered only the usability and the look and feel features of the game. But testing a game is much more than this. Not only Fun/ Entertainment part, there are many other aspects to be focused upon. Below are the various factors on which game testing needs to be done.

1. Performance Testing: Load testing on the gaming application is a test on the system how capable the application is to handle the traffic on it. There may be a condition where you see the numerous amount of the gamers trying hitting the application and there may be a situation where heavy load leads to the failure and crash of the game resulting poor performance of the app. Hence Load and volume testing are important aspect for detecting responsiveness and stability of the app.

2. Usability: User experience is a factor that is anyhow tested for all softwares. Games are not only supposed to work properly but also it should provide great user experience in order to uphold and retain the users.

3. Real World Testing: One of the most complex aspect of the testing the game is to look and test the actual or real world environment. As we observe that the task is really complex and we need to use the tools for making the task smooth.

4. Entertainment: Whenever the word game falls into the ears first thing comes in the picture is the entertainment or the Fun Element. Along with the good user experience a game must be fun to play. This factor can be checked by having the insight of the focused target group of the application.

5. Multi-user: There may be design requirement of the app that it will provide the multi-user support for the application. This can be a very typical process for the testers test the various scenarios where multiple players are simultaneously interacting with the game world.

6. Multimedia & Graphics: A Layman or a user is least concerned about the background processes. The basic bridge between the user and the application is how the application looks and feel. Audio, graphics and UI should go with the flow in order to make the user experience in playing the game better.

7. Network Testing: Most of the games these days have an online or we can say network requirement of for execution. Although basic requirement for any application is that it should be able to save the details in the database even in the offline mode or without presence of network services.

8. Multi-platform: Application developed is made to run on each and every platform and hence multiple platform support along with all the functional and non functional issues to be tested.

9. Artificial Intelligence: In game testing, it is necessary that all the system-controlled components work efficiently, lets suppose we take a simple example of Chess, in this game computer needs to sense and handle different types of behaviours and how this can be confused with other parameters. then the flow is laid for further. Hence, for game testing knowledge of Artificial Intelligence is required.