Testing, Testing

A Development Kit

Video game testers

Bug Typing (not of the Pokémon variety)

A type

These kinds of bugs are maximum priority; the game cannot be played with these present. They prevent publishing.

·         Crash

The game or software is completely unresponsive, having either suffered a critical error or becoming hanged (unresponsive) indefinitely.

·         Severe

The gameplay has been impaired by bugs to the point where it is unplayable. Highly important features of the game are unusable, and the gaming experience is utterly ruined. These often include bad frame rates, data corruption, and critical flaws in the gameplay itself.

Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword Game Breaking Bug;

If you do certain things In a certain order In L.O.Z Skyward Sword, You can no longer proceed in the game and the gameplay is ruined. This is not a Crash, but it is a severe bug.

B type

These prevent the game from being sold, or reduce sales if released. They are often used as exploits.

·         General

There are notable glitches and bugs, which affect gameplay greatly but do not ruin the gameplay entirely. They can however build up into a severe glitch if left unchecked. They can often involve localisation translation errors, flaws in aesthetics, and bad game mechanics.

Simpsons Hit & Run B type Glitch;

In Simpsons Hit and Run, you can use cheats to access the area outside the map. This can be escaped and does not impede progress, but is a major bug. You can cause crashes by doing certain things in this area.

C Type

This type of bug can be ignored, is funny, or goes completely unnoticed by the player.

·         Minor

These can be considered nuisances, small glitches that can be easily worked around and yet are somewhat noticeable.

·         Cosmetic

These are very small flaws, hardly noticeable, such as minor texture and H.U.D errors.

Borderlands 2 C type glitch;

The NPC character Tiny Tina has a common glitch, a lazy eye that was not meant to occur. The creators left this in, as they thought it suited her craziness.

Phases of testing

Identification

 The tester plays the game and figures out what should and shouldn’t be. More or less what it says on the tin, the tester ‘Identifies’ bugs and glitches, so they might be reported.

Reporting

A detailed report of the bug is then sent to the developers via a computer system, along with possible ways to solve it and occasional videos showing the bug happening.

Analysis

 The developer who worked on the aspect of the game that is bugged will analyse the bug and figure out ways to fix it. If more information is needed, the tester can be asked to send more detail.

Verification

After the issue is fixed, that part of the game is sent to be tested again. If the bug is small or non-descript, and can be ignored, it might not be fixed or added in as a feature.

Testing Types

Play testing

Simply playing a level and exploring it to see if there are any bugs or gameplay errors.

Soak testing

This involves leaving the game on for a period of time, allowing it to repeat one of the programmed operations for a long time, such as a characters idle stance, or the repeated use of a character’s movement. This helps fix errors with memory and glitches that occur after repeated operations.

Stress testing

Stress testing is running the software in conditions that would break it. This is to see whether the software has good error handling capabilities, and to see if the software can recover well afterwards.

Localisation testing

This sort of testing ensures the game is suitable for multiple countries, that all the text that the player needs/wants to read can be read, and that parts of the game that would not be acceptable in certain countries are removed or changed.

Testing suites

The idea of a testing suite is to find all the errors in a part of a game and fix them.

The first thing you need to do is to figure out all of the elements of the game. They could be anything from lighting to whatever direction a certain object moves in. You then need to check whether or not there is anything wrong with any of them, and then you need to report whatever is wrong to the programmers to see if they can fix the problem. If they need more information, you may need to analyse the problem and see if you can pinpoint the problem. After they have corrected the error, you will need to re-test that particular element of the game to see if they have fixed it correctly.

To start off with, you need to ask questions about each element of the game;

Does the Splash screen appear?

Does the first Main menu work properly?

Does the second Main menu work properly?

Does the Level menu work properly?

Does the Menu SFX play?

Does the Menu exit beep play?

Does the Level ground model appear in the level?

Does the Level ground model texture appear properly?

Does the Sky Dome appear?

Does the Sky Dome animation play properly?

Do the Water physics work properly?

Does the Water texture display?

Do the Water animations play properly?

Do the Water splash sounds play?

Does the Monorail 1 asset appear in level?

Is the Monorail 1 texture displayed properly?

Does the Monorail 2 asset appear in level?

Is the Monorail 2 texture displayed properly?

And so on. You need to ask every question you can about each and every asset and aspect to create a proper mock testing suite.

A good example of a testing suite is a flowchart; this helps you figure out what is needed to be done and how to go about it.

This is the beginning of a test flow diagram of my own FMP game level.

A Testing suite is mainly about constantly asking questions and determining whether the game can or should be fixed, and repeating the process until either you or the project manager is happy with it. It’s quite obvious you cannot ever get rid of all the bugs in the game, there will always be something wrong, but the point is to get rid of the majority and the most obvious and dangerous. And that’s all I got on Video Game testing.

Video Game Story Elements

To start off with, video games have varying genres that each has different styles of story to them, same as movies. You can have a Horror game, which depends on a good protagonist, and plenty of tense atmosphere, or an Action game, which tends to depend mainly on newer mechanics and the gameplay side of things. Video game stories are interactive, so they often have varying plot lines and things that can be done in the mean time; events don’t tend to flow as quickly, unless for some reason the game demands it. You can find interesting plot off shoots in some games by wandering from the set path. Video games also often have emotional storylines that make the player feel involved; they draw the player in so that the player experiences the events of the game vicariously through the characters. To make a player feel involved, various things can be employed, such as the camera showing the characters facial expression, at the right angle, in the right light, can make someone feel happy or sad. The setting is also important; areas in a game must always have some indication of where to go next unless the entire point is the next area is hidden. Areas to progress through are often marked by more collectables or enemies, or it being lighter in that direction.

Character back-stories are not essential, but they do help. Some characters, like Sonic the Hedgehog, only have the simplest of back stories, and all he is, is the fastest hedgehog in the world. This does not interrupt with the fast paced action of the game, nor does it detract from it. Another character, Olimar from the Pikmin series, has a back-story as an intergalactic delivery person. This helps explain certain things and adds a dimension to the story that otherwise might leave one questioning.

Point of view is mainly useful as a gameplay device, but it can also work for plot. For example, the Bioshock series is for the most part in first-person view. This helps the player to feel more connected to the main character, and helps make the atmosphere of the game work better. Bioshock used this technique to help keep one enemy, the ‘Songbird’, from being shown directly until later on.

Certain games can swap views from character to character. Most of the time this just means that a different character will go through the same events just with slight differences in dialogue, but other times that character will have a completely different experience.

One of the best ways to create a story that draws a player in and makes them feel involved is to have a particular emotional element to the plotline. The previously mentioned games have certain elements to their plots that give them uniqueness; Sonic the Hedgehog tends to favour a valuable message that can teach the player something, such as animal cruelty begin wrong. The Pikmin series has a theme of exploration, and strives to make you feel like you are truly in a wild world. Lastly, the Bioshock series has an emotional theme of dread, as if someone important could die at any moment. Another part of Bioshock is about obtaining freedom, to the point that a character allows himself to get killed in order to give the player some freedom.

This blog post is about a Dungeons and Dragons project I and my friend Marek made for college. This post shows the comments made whilst people evaluated it and my response to them.

The evaluations were mainly possitive with praise on the artwork, story and the card statistics, and negative comments on colour usage and spelling;

The first set of comments me and my partner Marek received Praised our well written adventures, which is a surprise because when I wrote them I was not to sure about them. The comments brought up some spelling issues, and maybe some errors on the card designs, which the comments suggested spell checker be used. This would be rather hard, as the cards were made in Photoshop which has not got spell checker. Marek has yet to master english spelling, but once he does this problem won’t bother him.

The second set of comments was pretty much the same with the artwork and card design, praising the well made cards, but they seemed to think the narrative was lacking in size. In all honesty it could have been bigger, that is true, but I had not time or enough information to do so. If I start this earlier next time I should have enough time. This set of comments said the cards and maps made were marketable, which is indeed high praise, as there were many mistakes which I could have pointed out.

The third set of comments was mainly art based, commenting on the detail and designs of the art. They also mention how the card designs were original and the adventures were detailed. They commented mainly on how the art was colourless, saying there should have been more colour. The cards we were handed were monotone, so I drew the pictures in monotone, so I can’t really accept that criticism, however, I shall try to use more colour in the future if the project calls for it.

The fourth set of comments mentioned the cards and the product in general was well rounded, but as mentioned before, they said that the text is brief and could be improved. They mention that the card statistics were well balances, I’m glad that Marek did a good job there.

The Fifth set of comments, praised the designs for being imaginative and creative, but said the written parts weren’t on par with the artistic parts. It mentioned that we should focus more on the written parts. I can see this, but I spend some time trying to communicate with my partner over the card section, so time was limited on the time we had for the written part. I thought it was short but sweet, but I can see how it would be criticised for this, and next time I am doing something like this I shall try to do the writing first.

The sixth set of comments was of a more technical note, commenting on how the cards were made in Photoshop format which would make it hard for some people to access them, and commenting on the colour once again. They also mentioned the projection of the concept, which I don’t understand, but I guess It means the project should be better presented.

I shall take all of these into account next time I do a project, and I thank all involved for their criticism.

The Brief is rather informal, yet gets the main message of what is expected of you across succinctly and clearly. You are expected to create a new Dungeons and Dragons adventure set, complete with play area tile maps, characters, monsters, treasures and traps, and some rules for the adventure. It must be able to include other Dungeons and Dragons content from any book from the 4^th edition core books. It must be either loosely or completely based on mythology from within the British Isles, using characters and monsters from legend or myth, or even some from real life, and areas related to the United Kingdom. The stories too must fit in with British mythology, or at least be loosely based.  This brief is simple, and shows the time you have and the money you will be allowed, and what kind of attitude they would expect the team that would work on this to be like towards the subject (i.e. Enthusiastic) and how they expect you to present your work. Overall, I think this brief is a decent one, but could use some tweaking if it was to be put into the actual industry. Some of the contractual terms are a bit loose.

For project roles, we would have to hire Concept artists for the artwork we would want to put on the character cards, and the artwork we may want to put on the map tiles. We will obviously need an expert in the rules and playing of Dungeons and Dragons, who will advise the entire task force on how the game works and how our designs and characters will fit in with the game. We would need graphics designers to create and make the cards and tiles, and some equipment to create the prototypes. We would need some researchers to find out information on character ideas that we wish to do, and an Administrator to help the team to keep on task.

 The Pay checks would have to be fair; I would say about £30 a week for the artist or less if there’s more than one, £40 per week for the advisor, a lump sum of £100 for each of the graphics team who create the cards and tiles, or a negotiated fee, and a spare amount of around £700 for the equipment, as printers and graphic design products do not cost much. And finally a pay check of around £50 a week for the Admin.

This is a Gantt chart of our plan;

Our planned response would be a booklet of the British based adventure, based on the last quests of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, an adventure that has been lost to history. The booklet would involve the rules, story, and details of the quest. It would also contain artwork to show what the quest might look like, and artwork maps showing the ‘land’ of the quest. It would have to contain the usually mandatory regulations, such as safety instructions and copyrights. We would also create prototypes of the models of characters we create, using plastic, clay or cheap metal, and the character cards that would come with it, which would contain the statistics and artwork of the character and would be vital to the set. The prototype will also contain map tiles for small areas of the quest, as it would not be necessary to create all the tiles until the planning is complete and the prototype is successful to save money and time. The tiles will be fully coloured and complete, with planned areas, but yet can be lain out in random ways. We will also be creating monsters for the quest, and like the other characters they will have cards and prototype models. They like the rest of this product will be based on British mythological creatures and monsters that King Arthur might have been said to have fought.  And that would cover all the requirements for the brief so far.

A Brief explanation

Briefs are often a simple yet comprehensive explanation of what the client wants from the person given the brief. It can be as simple as an informal brief, a written explanation of what is needed to be done, often informal yet distinct, but it can also be a contract with very specific objectives and a formal manner, often called a ‘Tendered’ brief. They often start with a worded description, formal or not. Sometimes if the client and designer are close this can consist of a casual conversation, otherwise it’s just written communication. You can also receive a briefing as a group, in a team, but these briefs are often hard to negotiate, but simple and easy to spread information around. Next, the Brief will have a list of requirements, involving what needs to be done, what information will need to be gathered and required materials. The idea of the brief is that the creative elements of the client’s initial idea are present in the final product. Briefs must be simple and easy to follow, are you must clarify with the client about uncertainties you have with the brief.

Here is an example of a tendered brief;

Project Brief: Example

A family plumbing business called "Leaky Pipes?" want an interactive web presence to advertise their plumbing business. It is intended that the site be commercial and educational.

There are two brothers and one sister in the company and each have different ideas about what should be included in the web site. They all agree that they want more than just a static web presence on the Internet and that they would like the site to have some interactivity.

They think that a good way to attract users to their plumbing site would be to have an educational aspect to it. Dempster, the eldest brother, is interested in making small mini videos with him carrying out simple plumbing maintenance tasks. He is very interested in health and safety. Miquel, the youngest brother wants the site to have a page with a list of simple plumbing maintenance tips including what to do in emergency before a plumber arrives. The advice and videos given will only show how to carry out simple plumbing maintenance with the view of users finding the site in a search and then contacting the business for quality plumbing work. The sister, Laurietta, wants an on-line quotation form for plumbing work that will allow a user to complete it and then submit it for general quotes and an e-mail facility for more complicated quotes. At the moment there is no need for an e-commerce facility.

The company logo used should contain the company name and a colourful image of a plumber.

The users to be targeted would be anyone who would be likely to require dependable and reasonably priced plumbers.

All three of the partners have asked for the completed web site to be ready in four months time.

I found that at this website: http://www.sqa.org.uk/e-learning/IMPlanning01CD/page_09.htm

That example shows the problem first, and then explains the problem in more detail. It ends with a list of requirements as I explained, all briefs will have these. This example shows a problem, and that in a sense is what a brief is; A set problem that you must solve, with given objectives.

If the Brief needs changing, or seems unreasonable, or you have issues with it, there are ways of changing the requirements, to a degree. If a requirement is impossible for you to do, say, there is too little money given in the budget, or the request is highly impractical, you can request a change in the brief from the client. If the budget is up for discussion ask what constraints are there on what you can do with the amount of money given. If you need clarification of something in the brief, it is best to ask as soon as possible. If the Client doesn’t relent to a compromise, you could request extra time, or work your way around the problem yourself. You could even get help. If the problem is too much, then it would be for the best for the project to be passed on to someone else or got rid of altogether.

 If the brief set before you seem a bit of a challenge, use this opportunity to expand on your skills and set about learning the skills you will need for the task. If the client will pay for training, then feel free to do so. Also, if you feel you can improve the final product of the brief, doing it better (although within the restraints of the brief itself) then approach the client about it and see what they say about your proposal.

All in all, as I said before, a brief is a problem that you must solve in a certain way to satisfy the client, and you can try to make the result as best you can by using negotiation and innovation. This is the same with all forms of project briefing and is an important life skill to learn.

Racism in gaming.

This is a fairly sensitive subject, so I’ll try and say what i need to say without upsetting anyone.

Racism in games is a common problem in games, as some countries are predominately white, so most characters are therefore white, which doesn't go unnoticed. Most games, if this, problem arises, just patch a few characters with a different colour skin, but even this sometimes encounters problems - I don't know why, I just read this from somewhere on the internet, and I’m not sure its completely true.

There have been some serious problems though, as some older games have had serious racist inclinations. One such game is "Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide" which is an obviously racist game, of which I would prefer not to go too far into. The most I’ll say is that it included negative religious views, violence, and high amounts of racism. It turned out that the game itself was a joke, intended to annoy and induce uproar, and it was soon taken of the internet and banned.

Another way of seeing racism in games is stereotypes: a video game called "Freaky flyers" has these stereo types, as said by this website:

http://www.ugo.com/games/the-11-most-racist-video-games

"Often times, racism can come in under the guise of cartoonish good times. Such was the case with inept multiplatform air racing game Freaky Flyers, released in 2003 by doomed Midway. Players could take control of a motley crew of horrible stereotypes, including Sheik Abdul, a Middle Eastern Ay-rab with a turban and a talking camel; Sammy Wasabi, a horrible Tojo caricature with buck teeth and broken English; Pauli Atchi, a completely legitimate Italian businessman; and Cactus Rose, a "fiery bandita" from Mexico."

Some could say that this is simply comical, and I think so, but if it appears on that website, then someone somewhere thinks its racist.

Another more resent example would be "Resident evil 5", a first person shooter where you kill zombies. Unfortunately, the trailer showed the protagonist mowing down an infected African village, and all the zombies were African. They fixed this so that the enemies were more racially diverse, but there were some complications in the game, which some critics still claimed as racism. The head of the British board of film classification stated that they deemed it not to be too racist, and felt sorry that some people were still unhappy with it.

Another game, one of which I have already mentioned on this blog, is "Grand theft auto", of which contains and in some cases encourages racist behaviour, as one of the missions is to investigate a Cuban/Haitian gang war, and the characters show hate towards some of the gang members, and after some lawsuits the company that made the game, "Rockstar", removed some of the discriminate language from the game.

A Certain report that I came across has a view that blaming video games for violence is racist, as it appears to only happen in predominantly white areas.

Christopher Ferguson, a Psychologist, says that when a shooting at school, college, or the attacker is young, happens in an area of a minority, video games are not blamed. Yet, when an attack happens in a predominantly white area, video games are often blamed. He may have a point, but his conclusion cannot be too sound as it is not always true, video games are not always blamed.

The arguments surrounding racism are delicate ones, as if people get too personal or philosophical it can derail the argument, and you could end up just going in a circle, with no end to the debate. Video game companies, or for that matter any form of Media Company must consider their portrayals of race carefully, or be thrust into controversy which they really don’t want.

Video game ratings

A fair few video game regulations have been created; one of the most obvious ones is the age restriction regulation which splits the video game into age ratings: 3+, which is for young children, 7+, for older children, 12+, for young teenagers, 16+, for older teenagers, 18+, for adults.

The age regulations stated are set by Pan European game information (PEGI), which is the most prominent age regulatory system, but there is another system called the British board of film classification (BBFC), which is similar except U (underage) and  PG (parental guidance) is used instead of 3+ and 7+, 16+ is cut to 15.

These regulations were set after a few particular games were released: “Mortal kombat”, which contained graphic violence, “Night trap”, which contained sexual references and “Doom”, because of the prolific use of guns and demons.

But, the above regulations don’t always work. For one thing, some parents may flout the law and buy a game of rating 16+ for their 12 year old son/daughter. And it’s hard to stop them. Also some restrictions in America have had to content with the Freedom of speech amendment, which also covers freedom of expression.  Some game companies use the former to sell controversial games that otherwise would be banded, but if so these often have to abide by the regulatory systems anyway.

The Grand theft auto logo.

Grand theft auto has come under attack for many reasons. It’s an adult game, in my opinion, as it contains not only guns and violence but racism, some sexual references, and views of some of the more seedy aspects of the criminal underworld as we know it. It has also been connected to some young offenders, murder in one case, and is in the Guineas world book of records as one of the most controversial games in history. Who’s to say that this could not get into the hands of young children, and what would be the effect? This is the main aim of the regulatory system that games like this stay only in the hands of those old enough to understand and not be corrupted by it.

A current survey has shown that only 2% of games have an 18+ rating, and that they must introduce “cigarette style labels” to games with violence (this possibly means on games of 16+) in order to make parents aware of what they may be giving their child, as some kids know what is in the game but don’t want their parents to know, or just think it’s cool and want it because it popular, mature content or not. This could reduce the risk of exposure to harmful media to young children.

This is a link to the site I found this information on: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3628894.ece

This webpage also covers the internet, and educating parents in these things to make them aware. This could work, as trying to stop children from accessing games is hard, but parents are the only barrier to them, reinforcing it would help greatly.

The age ratings aren’t all good, though, in some cases they can restrict access even to those who are allowed according to the ratings. In a German retailer called Kaufhof all games of 18+ rating are banned completely, they won’t sell them at all, which some would argue isn’t fair.

In any case, it will be a long time before game regulations are secure and reasonable. Education and reinforcing it are steps to a safer and more morally sound games industry.