Being a Game Tester - Game Testing All in One - page 26

I never would have tried that,�? then go and talk to that person and ask her what made
her think of doing that. Do this often and you can start to find those same kinds of
bugs by asking yourself “How would Linda test this?�?. Make sure you share your own
“bug stories�? too. A couple of topics on software defects that can give you some more
insight are: Computer Related Risks , by Peter G. Neumann, and Fatal Defect , by Ivars
Peterson.

Table 2.1 shows some of the ways that each personality type affects the kinds of bugs
testers will find and what kinds of testing are best used to find them.

Table 2.1 Tester Personality Comparison
Judger Perceiver

Runs the tests for… Finds a way to…

Conventional game playing Unconventional game playing

Repetitive testing Testing variety

User manual, script testing Gameplay, usability testing

Factual accuracy of game Realistic experience of game

Step-by-step or checklist-based testing Open-ended or outline-based testing

May rely too much on test details to see defects May stray from the original test purpose

Concerned about game contents Concerned about game context

Amplifying Problems
Normally the word “amplify�? makes you think of something getting bigger or louder.
In this case, “amplifying�? your defect will narrow it down for the developers, make it
more likely the defect will be fixed right the first time, and reduce the overall time and
cost spent on the problem.

If you found a way to crash the game by performing basic operations, there's not much
else you need to do to draw attention to your defect to get it fixed. If the way to cause
the crash is obscure, or you find it late in the project, or if it seems difficult to pinpoint
and repair, your defect will likely take a back seat to other ones. In both cases, there are
some specific ways that you can amplify the defects to maximize their “fixability.�?

Early Bird
Find defects early by testing the following items as soon as they become available.
If you don't know how to get the information you need, ask the development team or
build engineer if you can get some kind of report of the changes in each build.