9 Popular Video Game Testing Tools in the Market to Level Up Your Game QA

iXie — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 08:17:28 +0000

The last thing you need is to release a faulty or error-prone video game to players. Players will not like it and may create a negative impression of your video game due to the poor gameplay experience. Therefore, as a developer, you must thoroughly test your video game to ensure it works as expected and can effectively handle overload.

Remember, we live in an interconnected world where your video game can go viral overnight, attracting significant traffic. This means you must design your game to handle an increased workload without affecting functionality. And that’s where video game testing tools come into play. Join us as we review some popular video game testing tools to level up your game QA or quality assurance.

1. Unity Test Tools

Unity is one of the most used game engines globally, with about 70% of developers using it for mobile game development. This platform offers a set of robust testing tools to help you you’re your video games.

One of the test tools offered by Unity is the Unity Test Runner, which promotes the creation and execution of tests. This tool helps in ensuring the functionality and stability of video game elements. Also, it supports integration with several testing frameworks and offers an avenue for automated testing, strengthening game QA efforts.

Unity Test Tools streamline the process of detecting and rectifying glitches and bugs. This enhances the overall gaming experience by facilitating seamless gameplay and minimizing post-release issues.

2. TestComplete

TestComplete is a comprehensive automated testing tool that supports numerous types of applications, including video games. It supports different types of testing, such as:

Load testing,
Regression testing, and
Functional testing.

This feature set enables you to thoroughly test your video game, ensuring it works as expected and is free from errors. TestComplete’s scripting capabilities enhance customization, allowing you to tailor your tests to meet specific needs.

Additionally, this game testing tool helps game developers systematically evaluate gameplay elements for inconsistencies and bugs. But why do many testers prefer TestComplete for video game testing?

Well, it automates repetitive testing processes. In doing so, TestComplete expedites bug detection, allowing developers to allocate more resources and time to refining gameplay mechanics. Also, it enables you to simulate user interactions and test across different environments, ensuring seamless gaming experiences.

3. Xcode Instruments

If you’re building video games for iOS, Xcode Instruments can be an ideal testing tool to level up your game QA. This game-testing tool offers useful tools for inspecting and improving your video game. It is a flexible and powerful performance analysis and testing solution.

Xcode instruments offer numerous testing capabilities, enabling you to level up your game QA efforts. Here are some ways you can use Xcode instruments for video game testing:

To discover memory problems.
To track down issues in your source code.
To analyze the performance of your video game and identify areas of improvement.

4. BugSplat

BugSplat is a robust tool that enables you to quickly detect defects when testing video games. It is a crucial crash-tracking and reporting tool that supports meticulous crash and exception analysis. These capabilities help you pinpoint problems that disrupt gameplay stability.

As a result, you can assess and assign newly found defects from actual crashes experienced by game players in minutes. This enables you to fix the most crucial issues by the end of the day, minimizing your video game’s downtime.

BugSplat provides actionable insights into the root causes of crashes, facilitating efficient bug fixes. In doing so, BugSplat elevates your overall video game quality, enhancing player satisfaction.

5. GameBench

GameBench is one of the leading tools for performance data collection, analysis, and optimization for video games and other applications. It is tailored for mobile games and provides a comprehensive solution to assess the stability and efficiency of games across different devices.

GameBench measures critical video game metrics, including memory consumption, battery usage, and frame rates, helping you detect performance issues that may hinder gameplay experience.

This tool empowers you to optimize your video games for a wide range of mobile devices, ensuring high-quality and consistent performance across various mobile platforms. Its ability to unearth potential issues early in game development helps ensure a seamless gaming experience.

6. Hatchet

Hatchet is a cloud-based testing solution that allows you to perform testing on various devices. It offers automated testing and helps developers detect compatibility issues across different hardware configurations. As a result, developers can identify and rectify glitches and bugs in the early development stages, improving the overall video game performance and quality.

7. Appium

Appium is an exceptional framework whose use cases cut across different development aspects. For instance, many of today’s popular video games are tested using Appium. It is an easy-to-use game-testing tool that supports graphics-based content, including video games.

Appium’s cross-platform compatibility enables you to test your video game on Android and iOS devices using one script. This ensures faster and more efficient game testing.

8. Valgrind

Valgrind is a useful video game testing tool that can level up your game quality assurance efforts. If you’ve primarily built your video game using C or C++, Valgrind can be an invaluable testing tool. It facilitates profiling and debugging in C and C++ applications. Developers use this tool to detect memory leaks and other low-level issues in their video games.

9. PlaytestCloud

PlaytestCloud enables you to playtest any video game on any platform, including iOS and Android. This tool focuses on gathering user feedback and playtesting. It allows you to remotely test your video game using actual players and collect insights on gameplay, bugs, and user experience.

Final Thoughts

Video game testing is crucial in ensuring a seamless gameplay experience and quality. These game-testing tools can help you level up your game QA. However, choosing your preferred tools should be based on the specific need, development environment, and target platforms. Also, assessing the capabilities and features of each tool can help you select the testing solution that best fits your video game QA requirements.

A day in the life of a Game Tester!

iXie Gaming — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 11:44:40 +0000

To give an idea of what a Game tester’s day looks like, we are talking about a guy who goes by the gamer tag ‘Dalda’

Is game testing a job or a career?
While the game testing career starts as a lower paying job, there is a high potential for anyone to grow in the industry very quickly. Those who have an urge, commitment and wish to make a name for themselves in the gaming industry, game testing provides a big platform to grow. If one is focused long enough and keep learning and stay current, he/she can make a managerial role within a short span of 10 years.

How did you get started?
I always found myself playing a lot of video games going back as far as I can remember. From my college days, I was interested in computers plus my long-standing interest in video games lead me to conclude that I wanted to be a part of the gaming industry.

The first job I got was in company, one of whose Executive was a friend’s Uncle. Knowing the bunch of us and our addiction to gaming we got offered a job.

What do you do all day?
Playing games was something I knew how to do, However, learning how to be a tester, I had to unlearn what I knew, which was killing bad guys, smashing stuff and level up faster. That does not help a tester, test a game effectively. On a regular day, my schedule was pretty tight. I had done to all sort of background stuff like anyone does at their job, like keeping track of what they do.

What skills do you think are most useful for a QA tester?
Attention to detail, and understanding the game. Learning the game properly and in detail will help us to understand patterns within the game, which will help to break the game and find more bugs.

What’s the pay like?
Unlike software engineers, game testing is not a highly paid job at entry. A game tester with 2 years of exposure would have more knowledge than a software tester who holds 5 years of experience. The learning curve is much steeper. All that will help one to grow quickly and get to bigger roles with better pay.

Are there any games which involve dread testing?
Definitely. Testing a game in a foreign language, without any support documentation or without anyone to explain the game, makes your job a lot harder.

Do you have a say in what games you test?
No. You go where you are asked to go and are expected to work on anything that is sent your way.

What’s the best and worst part of being a QA tester?
The best part is that you get to learn so much. You see a game when it is just in the developmental stages. You get to track the whole game through its various phases. You get to lend a hand in shaping the game and making it better for everyone to enjoy. You get to see the game through to the end. And at the end of it all, you are happy because you know you helped make the game better and everyone is enjoying the game!

Worst part would be, after working for a whole day on a game, I ended up dreaming myself as a character stuck in the game and being unable to clear the level to get out!

Do you play the games you test in your downtime?
Yes, occasionally. One of the games I tested – Section 8, my colleagues and I ended up staying late for a few hours past the end of the day just to enjoy the game. Some more games in that list are CS: Condition Zero, Unreal Tournament.

Has the job affected your enjoyment of gaming?
After a small initial stage of not wanting to look at a video-game after working for a whole day on video-games, I have gone back to finding and playing new games in my free time and it is still a lot of fun.

What’s your favorite game and why?
Last of Us! No game has had me being so mentally involved with the protagonist.

Favorite movie based off a video game?
Halo Legends and Resident Evil series. These movies stayed close to the video game storyline, while most of the other movie versions of the games did not portray the story line nor convey the experience when you play the game.

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