Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
had them perfectly timed in your studio, in the game testing and QA
world things are going to change, and being open to iteration is just part
of the landscape.
Conclusion
Well, we've covered a great deal of ground here in our understanding
of game engines. Once you import a sound, it can't be edited within
the App, because that's not generally how a game engine works. An
audio i le is not much dif erent from any other asset in a game—it's just
an external i le that's triggered by the code. There are some behaviors
that can be dei ned, such as compression, streaming options, or 3D
and 2D settings, but none of these actually alter the original source i le
permanently. Once in the game, the next process is to create testable
versions and listen to how your sound and music assets are working
(or not), and to exchange feedback with the game's team members to
determine how to improve, revise, or change your sounds so that the
result will be a smooth and l uid game experience. This is called design
iteration and is part of nearly every game's development process. In
this phase you'll also be trying to push your game to see how all the
systems perform under stress, which is useful for ensuring your sound
triggering is accurate, robust and reliable.
Testl ight
The Testl ight tool was developed
in 2010, and helped streamline
a process for testing iOS devices
that was somewhat complicated.
Before Testl ight was launched,
the only way to test a game on an
iOS device was to get its unique
identii cation number, or UDID.
Once discovered (a process that
could be somewhat involved),
a tester would submit the UDID
number to the programmer
who would then contact the
manufacturer (Apple in this case)
to get permission to download
the application to that particular
device. Although dif erent third-
party tools appeared to smooth
that process out, Testl ight has
created a convenient, well-
managed system with their
website communicating with
the device, enabling it to send its
UDID automatically. It also makes
it possible for developers to set
up multiple accounts using these
same device IDs, and be able to
send or update builds to multiple
users at the click of a button. In
addition, it now supports Android
devices as well, so that the vast
majority of mobile developers can
take advantage of its convenience.
In our next level, we will crack open the hood of the very popular
game engine, Unity 3D, and show you what makes it tick and how its
inner logic works, with special focus on the audio system and how to
coni gure it for both music and sound ef ects.
This image shows the basic process used in Testl ight, one of the most
popular beta testing services for iOS and Android.
