More effective mobile game testing with exploratory testing
More effective game testing with exploratory testing and how to approach the game testing effectively is our focus today.
Games are particularly a good exploration environment and a challenging one. Because they are usually less of requirement, too many cases too many scenarios. The big game that fed by any data and the complexity of functionality that may lead to unexpected behavior, especially the selected game for testing in this post had included a dynamic AI system. Additionally, game testing generally demands the game has to meet requirements such as stability, good performance, and compatibility. Extensive and diligent testing is required to satisfy these requirements and to deliver a successful game.
To meet above requirement, at MEU – we had created a mobile game testing checklist (in general) by mindmap that can help us organize the test ideas (test techniques, types of testing, types of risk, heuristics, oracles, …) and driving the testing effectively. Now, in this post, we would like to introduce how we apply it with a real mobile game in Android and present the final testing result as well. A hand-on mobile game testing with Meu Solutions.
GAME TITLE: Monsterfield – developed by Wild Whale
It is based on the mechanics of the “Hexagon” but includes new features that make the gameplay more varied and interesting!
GAMEPLAY
Moving your character around the round to capture monsters of your competitor. If your monster is more than your competitor’s you will win, or you block out all the way of your rival — you can win and contrariwise when you have less monster than your competitor — you will lose or the rival block out all the way of your — you also lose. In this game, there are two modes for the user to play, one is an endless mode, and the second is the custom mode. When you choose an endless mode, you will play with AI to get points and bonus points by winning and completing a mission of the round, and when you choose a custom mode, you can choose the number of players, round… The points will be count when you play endless mode.
Monster Field is:
– Exciting turn-based game!
– Endless random levels generator!
– Local multiplayer: fight against your friends!
TESTING APPROACH
+ Planning
We identify the types of testing required for this game testing project, identify which kind of testing checklist we should follow and re-use from our library test case. Some highlight and major aspects that require for this game listed as below which will help us modify the checklist effectively:
- Main game purpose: Entertain and Fun. This requirement is quite complex and subjective area in testing than other domain in most of the mobile apps testing. Everyone’s definition of fun varies, but it is also the most important element for which testing is imperative.
- AI Testing: a dynamic AI system is implemented in this game. Therefore, the challenge is it is difficult for the testing to know, identify whether the game’s AI is working correctly or not.
- Puzzle game: This type of testing often requires domain expertise, high skill gamer.
- Multiplayer: Involve multiplayer will involve network testing which will lead the game greatly increases the number of test cases that must be covered.
+ Strategies
We identify there are four general test areas that are applicable to this project testing.
- Exploratory Testing
- Compatibility
- Performance
- Regression
After chose this game for our game testing hand-on, we spent time on finding out how the gameplay work by playing several times (exploring the game) – this game does not have any document, how the interface looks and what functionality it has. From there, we would edit the checklist into a more consistent checklist for testing this game. Using provided checklist and modify, update it to match this game, planning and tracking testing progress also using this mindmap file as well.
Timeline: 5 days
- On the first day, we researched about the game and updated the checklist to meet our game.
The checklist has not edited yet
The checklist has been edited
- On the second day, we started to test the game with the game’s “interface” and “performance”, it includes movement of character, graphics, logo in the device, enable /disable button, font, loading time of the game, …
- On the third and fourth day, we tested the game’s sound and half of “play game”, it includes all sounds in the game, play game in endless mode…
- On the fifth day, we tested the network and the other half of “play game”, it includes play game in custom mode and checking network, and install /uninstall …
During the test, we summarize the testing result and report bugs. We still used Xmind for taking note and bug tracking.
THE TEST RESULT
The bug list of this mobile game testing:
| ID | Bug’s Title | Description | Priority | Environment |
| 1 | Don’t know exactly who wins when there are multi-players in the custom mode | It only shows “You win” when the game end although there are many players play together (human vs human). Expecting that each player name who wins the game will be shown on screen. | Medium | -Android 7.1 (Oppo F5 Youth)
– Android 7.0 ( Samsung J7 Plus ) – Emulator- Nox (6.0.9.0) |
| 2 | The effect sound is still playing when pressing the home button on the device or clicking on menu options in all mode | High | ||
| 3 | Can only choose the character for player 1 in the custom mode | When play human vs AI, the chosen character only show for player 1, when switching human player to player 2 and AI to player 1, it still shows the chosen character for player 1. (AI) not player 2 (Human) | Medium | |
| 4 | Can choose all players is AI in the custom mode | All AI can play together, not involve a human being. | High | |
| 5 | Some fields have partially covered by game objects — in all mode. | Some squares are partially covered in the following fields which have width-height :7-7, 8-8, 8-3, 8-4, 8-7 | Low | |
| 6 | The score is not synchronized with the server after re-install | High |
P/S: Game download link
