Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
So, as a tester, you can do
both at once
by following this advice:
Know your role on the team based on the responsibilities assigned to you
■
Execute your tasks aggressively and accurately
■
Do the most important tests first
■
Do the tests most likely to find defects often
■
Make emotion-free and objective decisions to the best extent possible
■
Note
Chapter 15, “Defect Triggers,�? describes how testing causes defects to appear so you can cover
those possibilities in your testing. These also help you decide which tests will be the most impor-
tant ones to run and which ones should be run the most often.
The rest of this topic equips you to apply the two rules to your game testing. Don't feel
like you have to incorporate everything at once to be successful. You may already con-
sider yourself an effective tester. Use new insights from this topic to refine your existing
skills and add the techniques you learn in Chapters 10-17 where it makes the most sense
for your projects.
You should also apply the two rules to what you read in this topic. Don't trust that
what you read here will work every time for everything you do. If you get results that
don't make sense, find out why. Try something, and then measure or evaluate it to
decide whether to go on using it and refining it, whether to try something new, or
whether to go back to what you were doing in the first place. But do try it before pass-
ing judgment. I would just caution you not to trust yourself too much before you
make sure you are applying the technique properly. Then you can decide if it works
for you. These methods are good—trust me.
Remember, as a game tester, everyone is trusting in you to find problems before the
game ships. Don't give them cause to panic!
Note
Chapter 10, “Combinatorial Testing,�? Chapter 11, “Test Flow Diagrams,�? and Chapter 13, “Test Trees,�?
introduce you to three important game testing methods. Use them to understand the game soft-
ware early in development and systematically explore the game's features and functions through-
out the project.
