Why Testing Is Important - Game Testing All in One - page 52

Enabling special moves, chains, etc.
Strategy
CPU opponent movement and combat decisions
CPU unit creation and deployment decisions
Resource and unit building rules (pre-conditions, resources needed, etc.)
Damage and effect calculations
Enabling the use of new units, weapons, technologies, devices, etc.
First Person Shooters (FPS)
CPU opponent and teammate AI
Opposing and friendly character combat decisions and actions
Damage calculations based on skills, armor, weapon type and strength, etc.
Weapon targeting, area of effect, and damage over time
Environmental effects on speed, damage to player, deflection or concentration
of weapons (for example, Unreal Tournament Flak Cannon rounds will
deflect off of walls)
Puzzle Games
Points, bonus activation, and calculations
Determining criteria for completing a round or moving to the next level
Determining success of puzzle goals, such as forming a special word, or
matching a certain number of blocks
Enabling special powerups, awards, or modes
To complicate matters further, some game titles incorporate more than one game
“type�? and its algorithms. For example, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
(KOTOR) is an RPG/Adventure game that also has points in the story line where you
can play a card game against non-player characters in the game and engage in swoop
bike racing—though not both at the same time! Unreal Tournament 2004 is typically
considered an FPS, but it also incorporates adventure and sports elements at various
stages of the tournament.
Some other areas where Algorithm type defects can appear in the game code are
graphics rendering engines and routines, mesh overlay code, z-buffer ordering, colli-
sion detection, and attempts to minimize the processing steps to render new screens.
For the Vanish bug, consider an Algorithm defect scenario where the duration value
is calculated rather than taken from an array or a file. Also suppose that a duration of
0 or less will not get displayed on the screen. If the calculation (algorithm) fails by