Mobile Game Testing: Secrets of the Profession
Surely everyone who loves computer games, at least once in their life, thought about how great it would be if they paid for the time spent in the game. It turns out that anything is possible. The profession of a game tester is rapidly gaining popularity.
Who is a game tester
The concept of “game tester” speaks for itself. Testing involves checking the game, finding and fixing errors before it reaches users. This is a standard, but extremely important step in the development of a game. Commercial success is also highly dependent on how thoroughly the application has been tested for defects. If a player encounters errors in the first hours of getting to know the game, this greatly reduces the likelihood of success. At first, you need to take an example from experienced guys in this business, such as game outsourcing by Whimsy.
It is important to understand that a gamer and a game tester are not the same thing. The tester’s goal is to find errors in the system that can negatively affect the gameplay. Not all gamers go through the same level of the game using a variety of combinations of actions. But the tester’s job is like this. It verifies that everything the user can do and see in the game is working correctly.
Gaming experience
The experience of playing on various devices will also be to your advantage. Games for personal computers, mobile phones and game consoles differ in their implementation, ways of interacting with the gaming world and trends.
For example, the mobile game testing market is now actively developing and looking for new talent. If you feel like a fish in water playing on your phone or tablet, and maybe you have already reported bugs in their applications to application developers, then you should definitely pay attention to testing mobile games.
Any skills related to programming, testing, game design and even translation of games will be a plus. Understanding the basics of testing will also come in handy. All these skills will come in handy for various types of testing: UX testing (testing the interface), testing localization (checking how correctly the text of the game was translated into a foreign language), load testing (what kind of load the game can withstand).
What should be a game tester?
It is also important for a candidate for the position of a game-tester to have certain personal qualities.
A game tester must be attentive and diligent in every detail. Defects are insidious and can make themselves felt at any time. A game tester knows how to keep his attention on a task for a long time. You will need to go through one episode of the game over and over again in search of defects, simulating various user actions. The error can appear only during the 20th passage of this stage. It is important that you can notice it.
Ability to look at the system from different angles. The tester’s job is to check all possible ways of interacting with the game. Even those that the developer could not have expected and foreseen. Try to imagine yourself in the place of the most curious user and explore all the most hidden corners of the game world.
Sociability. During the testing of the game, you will need to ask a question to managers, customers, developers, business analysts, and testing colleagues more than once. The ability to connect with different people will help you organize your work effectively and improve its quality. Each team member has important knowledge that a tester needs to understand whether he really found a defect, and how it really should be.
A good tester also knows how to feel the audience. This will allow you to understand what actions can be expected from a real player, and quickly find the defects that will be encountered and annoy users most often.
Learn, read, practice and get more info, and then you will definitely succeed.
