BTEC Level 3 Games Design | Unit 77: Designing Test for Computer Games | Game Defect Types – What You Need to know | Jakub Flis

BTEC Level 3 Games Design 

 Unit 77: Designing Test for Computer Games

 Game Defect Types 

 Jakub Flis

Operating Regions:
Whats operating regions? Operating regions consists of 4 stages of testing of the game in development these stages are Pre-game, Game start, In game and post game.Also operating regions includes the testing of hardware and software. 

Game operation - Game operation is how and where you would test a game to assure the game is complete and ready for the player. Game operations ties into operating regions in a seance that it can be identified as the 4 testing stages Pre-game, Game start, In game and post game.

Pre-game -  Pre game in operating regions is where the developer or testers try to find any bug in specific parts of the game for example in pre game the developer or testers would look and options for example they might change the resolution and the restart the game and try and see if the game lunches with that specified resolution or if the game launcher detects an update and updates the game client this would be pre game testing because it is done before the game is opened on your computer.I included the following picture to demonstrate how it would look if the game launcher detects and updates the game.  

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/7AFF98HKG88Y1392699385171.jpg


Game start - The second stage of operating regions is game start this is where the developers or tester would look at things like the main menu. maybe something is wrong the translation is not right or some thing is missing. As you can see in the following picture some of the main menus background is missing its just replaced with a black screen.
 
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mLLERKOq9sM/maxresdefault.jpg 

Also another example of game start test would be if the developers, publishers, supporters(nvidia or amd etc) logos show up upon starting the game. The following picture is included to illustrate how it would look like if every thing is going to plan.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1174866732

In game - In game testing includes a lot of things that could go wrong for example saving loading, cut scenes load screens, quitting trophy sustems etc. the tester could look displacement timing or if the game is not saving properly eg corrupting file or crashing upon loading in the save.the following picture shows what would happen if a game file gets corrupted on a Nintendo switch.

https://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/news/5/6/56617_243_happens-switch-game-data-gets-corrupted.jpg
This occurrence can be detaining in RPG's like fallout or the witcher because if you put in 10's maybe even 100's hours into game for it then to corrupt lousing all of you saved data and forcing you to start over again that's why most games now offer you the chance to create copy's of your save to prevent things like that from happening.

Post game - Post game testing is looking at things like the game credits, cinematic's reloading, saving etc.To find problems in the credits for example the testers look at things like if something is misspelled (name or sub heading) . Also for cinematic's the testers could look at de-sync or missing characters/objects in the cinematic this will assure that the product/game is shipped finished with out any mistakes in the visual experience.

Defect Types – Game defect types are different types of glitches that could appear in a video game for example a cut scene in a game has a problem the  image is late meaning the dialogue appears faster than the image this would be a timing defect because the dialogue is faster than the image.

Function - Function defect would be things like when you press the New game button nothing happens or when a button is pressed nothing happen an example would be maybe you trying to loot an enemy in fallout 4, you come up to them and press E on your keyboard on the enemy's body and nothing happens it doesn't allow you to loot that person meaning its a function defect because a function that is set to an action is not working at all or not working properly. 

Assignment - An Assignment defect would happen if maybe the player presses one button to perform one action but the game performs a different action signifying a assignment defect an example of this would be when you press the main menu button but the game displays the map or something else like  the inventory. This could also happen when a player is using a different keybind and then switches back to the default keybind but the game still thinks that its still the costume keybind instead of the original.


 Checking - An Checking defect could be identified by looking at specific things in the games for example you game saved file loads with things missing like objects this would be a checking defect what happens is the game check list failed for example while loading you saved file the game checks for some things like location progression objects assets etc if a checking defect happens one of these things is missing and the game lunches with out checking for it eg while loading the game of PUBG (Player unknown battlegrounds) the games launches without checking for the assets for the buildings and you spawn with all the buildings missing or not working properly(by saying not working properly i mean the buildings are just a blurred moulded mess with allows you to go through them).

https://content.invisioncic.com/r273030/monthly_2017_04/20170405224112_1.jpg.d5fd0d661b8593ba0979514d512b92a7.jpg

 Timing - A Timing defects could happen anytime in a game during a cut scene or dialogue  a timing defect is simply a miss timed action for example dialogue plays before the characters mouth open this defect often happens in big open world game like Skyrim there a character you interaction with speaks without opening their mouth. 

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/23390-1-1346412264.jpg


Build/Package/Merge - This is simply a defect where some of the in game files are incomplete or faulty which could cause the game to crash.This happens very often in video games specially it happened in battlefield 4 the game would crash every time after opening something or doing something in game.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SZUbjjF_KVw/maxresdefault.jpg

Algorithm - An Algorithm defects heppened when the code of the game is performing a calculations and then something goes wrong for example a NPC in a game keeps walking into a wall because of the path finding algorithm having a defect maybe a line of code is wrong or missing and this results in the NPC contently colliding with objects in game. the following video is an example of a NPC constantly walking into the wall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcfygsGbes.


Documentation - Documentation defects are just wrong or incomplete file in the code meaning eg that when a character says something that shouldn't be said maybe while recording the dialogue some thing happened like something got dropped and got recorded resulting in bad dialogues or sounds. This happens purely because of human mistakes someone maybe added the wrong dialogue file or the wrong sound and the documentation happens.

Defect Triggers – Defect Trigger is the thing or way to trigger a certain defect in a game for example in the source games if you strafe left and then right and repeat while jumping you'll progressively gain speed this is known as 'bunnyhopping' by strafing you coursed this defect to happen.

Orthogonal defect classification ODC - Orthogonal defect classification is a pattern made by a company called IBM to detect, define and get rig of any defect of bugs in a software.This software allows you to monitor and analyse the state of your software while in development


Hardware configurations - Hardware configuration in defect triggers simply means that the some of the hardware you might be running could cause a problem in the software for example in a video game like the EA's version of star wars battlefront its recommended to play the game with 16GB of ram because if the device your using has less then the game might see lower FPS or stutter in game which might make the game unplayable.  

Software configurations - Software configuration in defect trigger means that the software or game might no work/run on a unsupported OS eg windows vista windows xp etc. For example if your trying to play a newer game like Doom 2016 you would not be able to play the game opn a windows xp system because the game and the software its using does not support this OS and also if you computer is using windows 7 32bit the game would still not run because the game requires either windows 7/8.1/10 64bit and if your using a 32bit then the game might not even start.

Configuration trigger - A Configuration trigger is a setting that could trigger a defect in a video game for example chaining the resolution in game could cause the game to crash or swapping the texture quality for low the ultra could cause the Configuration trigger what could happen is the textures might not load in properly making the game look like a mess.This trigger could happen when changing anything.

Start-up trigger - Start up triggers are triggers that occurs at the start of the game or in the menu. examples of this trigger could be frame drops crashes textures being missing.These triggers are mostly visual and not the fault of the games program. This could happen because of many factors like hardware for example the processor is being also used by a different program and it just cant keep up.This trigger often happens in player unknown battlegrounds where the game would start but the assets haven't loaded in yet making you go through the ground or the buildings. The following pictures show this occurrences
 
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/m_bl7cP9Rsg/maxresdefault.jpg pricter 1
https://res.cloudinary.com/lmn/image/upload/c_limit,h_360,w_640/e_sharpen:100/f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/v1/gameskinnyc/r/s/z/rsz-loo-kah-deet-12f46.jpg pictrue 2

Exception trigger - The trigger is special designed by the developer to catch any attempts of chaining the in game files for example in CSGO adding a line of code that allows the player to see enemy's through the walls would be detected by the exception trigger and would instantly crash the game not allowing the player to use that line of code

Stress trigger - Stress trigger is a trigger that happens when something in a game is overloaded for example in a online game if there is a lot of online activity and the server of the game can't support that much activity then the server would have issues like crashing, not registering activity etc. This some times is used by hackers to ddos a game meaning they'll send a lot of requests to the server that will crash the server and they'll keep sending requests to keep the server down as long as they want. At the realise of battlefield 4 this defect trigger happened a lot the game had too much online activity for the server to keep up and this resulted in the games poor hit registration and the multiple crashes of the server. 

Normal trigger - this defect trigger is used out side the other testing regions this trigger is used to show how the game should be played and its mostly used through the development of the game. The following quotation is from a website talking about the different defect triggers "However, testing that almost exclusively uses Normal triggers is only training the code to follow a script. It will not detect many user faults that will occur in real-life situations."
I used this quotation to demonstrate was the normal triggers are used for.

Restart trigger - Restart trigger is a trigger that oecus when a game is ending, quitting from the game, turning of your device or when the disc of the game is being ejected.Some games display information that usual says "when you see this logo don't turn off your device" or "any unsaved progress would be lost are you sure you want to proceed" this informs the player that he or she might louse their progress if its not saved.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B7v0jWleUwU/maxresdefault.jpg