Implement modern and agile QA practices with the help of this part-color guide to ensure your games are high quality, on budget, and released on time Key Features Set up a test environment, create test plans, and learn to communicate with developers Discover how to build efficient QA teams either in-house or remotely Increase your chances of career advancement and your employability in the gaming industry Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionFew things are more annoying for gamers than encountering a buggy new game. This often leads to negative reviews, and in turn, you’ll find that demand for your games declines. The solution lies in better quality assurance (QA) – and Modern Game Testing will show you how to achieve just that. Whether you’re a new tester, developer or producer, the QA testing techniques shown in this book, using modern methodologies and the latest technology, will have you releasing quality games that are on time and, most importantly, on budget. The book begins by introducing you to QA and the various types of tests that are performed on games. You’ll then explore test cases and bug reporting, building tests for different platforms (even consoles and PCs), and LiveOps and test management. As you advance, you’ll build a QA team from scratch and work with remote QA testers. The chapters help you take a more traditional approach to learning lessons, enabling you to examine the modern agile approach and various testing strategies that you can then adopt. All angles are covered with oodles of examples, so you’ll have everything you need to implement QA strategies in your organization. By the end of this book, you’ll have a clear understanding of the modern methodologies of QA testing for games, and be able to build efficient, reliable, and long-lasting QA teams.What you will learn Conduct compliance, regression, and localization tests, among others Build and optimize test sets for testing mobile games Find out how to set up an efficient bug flow Write optimal bug reports that differentiate between priority and severity Pick the optimal testing approach for each phase of game development Discover how to use equivalence partitioning, boundary analysis, and decision tables Master live ops QA and handle live bugs Who this book is for This book is for game testers, game producers, game developers, testing managers, and other QA professionals who want to learn more about modern approaches to QA and utilizing them to build more efficient and cost-effective QA teams and products. Prior professional testing experience is desirable, either in software or games testing and/or experience working in the gaming industry. Basic familiarity with agile working practices such as scrum is needed to fully understand all the concepts explained in this book.

Focusing exclusively on the unique challenges of video game testing, you’ll discover how modern game companies create test plans and strategies for large and complex games, and learn the foolproof techniques and processes created for and used by real-world game teams. Packed with expert advice and real-life examples, you’ll find this book invaluable if you want to improve your own or your team’s feature test plans and catch more bugs. It’s also a great guide for testers looking to move into a test writing role. Inside you’ll find all the know-how you’ll need to own the end-to-end test strategy for game features, including: - identifying what should be tested for each game feature - designing tests with clear instructions for effective test execution - how to approach testing for a range of common game features - a toolbox of test planning techniques to guide the test planning process All equipping you to organise and communicate your plans within any project team. Complete with practical examples, working templates and industry tales from real projects, Modern Game Testing assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, tackling each area with logical, easy-to-follow steps. By the end of the book, you’ll have a sufficiently broad and deep knowledge to be able to write test plans for all the most common game features

An updated version of the bestselling Game Testing All In One, Second Edition, this book equips the reader with the rationale for vigorous testing of game software, how game testing and the tester fit into the game development process, practical knowledge of tools to apply to game testing, game tester roles and responsibilities, and the measurements to determine game quality and testing progress. The reader is taken step-by-step through test design and other QA methods, using real game situations. The book includes content for the latest console games and the new crop of touch, mobile, and social games that have recently emerged. A companion DVD contains the tools used for the examples in the book and additional resources such as test table templates and generic flow diagrams to get started quickly with any game test project. Each chapter includes questions and exercises, making the book suitable for classroom use as well as a personal study or reference tool. Features: * Uses a wide range of game titles and genres, including newer gaming experiences such as social networking games, games utilizing music and motion controllers, and touch games on mobile devices * Includes a new chapter on Exploratory Testing * Includes test methodology tutorials based on actual games with tools that readers can use for personal or professional development * Demonstrates methods and tools for tracking and managing game testing progress and game quality * Features a companion DVD with templates, resources, and projects from the book On the DVD: * Contains the tools used for the examples in the book as well as additional resources such as test table templates and generic flow diagrams that can be used for individual or group projects * All images from the text (including 4-color screenshots) * FIFA video from a project in the book eBook Customers: Companion files are available for downloading with order number/proof of purchase by writing to the publisher at [email protected].

An updated version of the bestselling, Game Testing All In One 3/E, this fourth edition serves as your comprehensive handbook to video game testing, guiding you through the essential skills needed to succeed in this exciting field. Whether you are a student seeking to enter the video game industry or a working professional aiming to refine your skills, this new edition gives you the basic skills of testing, demonstrates how game testing and testers fit into the game development process, and includes practical knowledge of tools, roles, responsibilities, and the metrics used to determine game quality and test progress. The reader is taken step-by-step through test design and other QA methods, using real game situations, and featuring interviews with veteran game developers. The book includes companion files for downloading with templates and tutorials for creating both combinatorial tables and test flow diagrams, which form the basis of a robust video game QA plan. Each chapter includes questions and exercises, making the book suitable for classroom use as well as a personal study or reference tool. FEATURES: Features test methodology tutorials based on actual games, plus examples and tools that readers can use for personal or professional development Explores documented methods and tools for tracking and managing game testing progress and game quality Provides companion files available for digital download, including classroom support files, templates, resources, and projects from the book

An updated version of the bestselling, Game Testing All In One 3/E, this fourth edition serves as your comprehensive handbook to video game testing, guiding you through the essential skills needed to succeed in this exciting field. Whether you are a student seeking to enter the video game industry or a working professional aiming to refine your skills, this new edition gives you the basics skills of testing, demonstrates how game testing and testers fit into the game development process, and includes practical knowledge of tools, roles, responsibilities, and the metrics used to determine game quality and test progress. The reader is taken step-by-step through test design and other QA methods, using real game situations, and featuring interviews with veteran game developers. The book includes companion files for downloading with templates and tutorials for creating both combinatorial tables and test flow diagrams, which form the basis of a robust video game QA plan. Each chapter includes questions and exercises, making the book suitable for classroom use as well as a personal study or reference tool.

Computers used to be for geeks. And geeks were fine with dealing with a difficult and finicky interface--they liked this--it was even a sort of badge of honor (e.g. the Unix geeks). But making the interface really intuitive and useful--think about the first Macintosh computers--took computers far far beyond the geek crowd. The Mac made HCI (human c

What is a game? -- The game industry -- Roles on the team -- Teams -- Effective communication -- Game production overview -- Game concept -- Characters, setting, and story -- Game requirements -- Game plan -- Production cycle -- Voiceover and music -- Localization -- Testing and code releasing -- Marketing and public relations.

Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the tester's role with examples from real agile teams. They teach you how to use the agile testing quadrants to identify what testing is needed, who should do it, and what tools might help. The book chronicles an agile software development iteration from the viewpoint of a tester and explains the seven key success factors of agile testing.

Are you in charge of your own testing? Do you have the advice you need to advance your test approach? "Dear Evil Tester" contains advice about testing that you won't hear anywhere else. "Dear Evil Tester" is a three pronged publication designed to: -provoke not placate, -make you react rather than relax, -help you laugh not languish. Starting gently with the laugh out loud Agony Uncle answers originally published in 'The Testing Planet'. "Dear Evil Tester" then provides new answers, to never before published questions, that will hit your beliefs where they change. Before presenting you with essays that will help you unleash your own inner Evil Tester. With advice on automating, communication, talking at conferences, psychotherapy for testers, exploratory testing, tools, technical testing, and more. Dear Evil Tester randomly samples the Software Testing stomping ground before walking all over it. "Dear Evil Tester" is a revolutionary testing book for the mind which shows you an alternative approach to testing built on responsibility, control and laughter. Read what our early reviewers had to say: "Wonderful stuff there. Real deep." Rob Sabourin, @RobertASabourin Author of "I Am a Bug" "The more you know about software testing, the more you will find to amuse you." Dot Graham, @dorothygraham Author of "Experiences of Test Automation" "laugh-out-loud episodes" Paul Gerrard, @paul_gerrard Author of "The Tester's Pocketbook" "A great read for every Tester." Andy Glover, @cartoontester Author of "Cartoon Tester"

The biggest challenge facing many game programmers is completing their game. Most game projects fizzle out, overwhelmed by the complexity of their own code. Game Programming Patterns tackles that exact problem. Based on years of experience in shipped AAA titles, this book collects proven patterns to untangle and optimize your game, organized as independent recipes so you can pick just the patterns you need. You will learn how to write a robust game loop, how to organize your entities using components, and take advantage of the CPUs cache to improve your performance. You'll dive deep into how scripting engines encode behavior, how quadtrees and other spatial partitions optimize your engine, and how other classic design patterns can be used in games.