Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Quality Assurance (QA)
It's with a pang of guilt that I leave a short discussion regarding Quality As-
surance and its relationship with storytelling for the last chapter of this
book.
Of course, QA testers are used to finding themselves last in the chain,
working under extremely tight deadlines and trying circumstances—so of-
ten crushed between unforeseen development delays on one side and an
immovable shipping date on the other.
The most serious bugs that testers find and report have to do with
crashes, freezes, progression blockers, performance issues, missing art as-
sets, holes in level geometry, and so on. Less serious but nevertheless
important-to-report issues can include menu errors, animation glitches,
localization problems, spelling errors, and art oddities.
However, testers sometimes also weigh in on less “bug-like” issues such
as game balancing, difficulty curve, presentation details, and even potential
legal concerns. Categories such as these can meander away from simple
bug reporting and into the realm of subjective feedback.
Which opens the door to a brief discussion of QA and video game
storytelling.
As a QA tester who—having read this topic—better understands the
foundations of narrative development, you now have more skills you can
bring to the table. Your ability to perceive correct vs. questionable story ele-
ments can help improve the narrative quality of the games you help to test.
