Games Test Life Cycle

Game Test Life Cycle 

Game test life cycle consists of:

• Plan - Tests first need planning, you can't dive into testing without knowing what to test and how to test it in the most effective way. Plans genuinely consists of information of new features or elements that has been added into the new build but most important it includes information of old bugs that have been fixed but to ensure that they are completely fixed, they need to be reviewed again and looked at again just in case the fix created more problems around it.
• Prepare - After the planning is finished, it's time to get everything and everyone together to start the testing process. In order to start, the development team needs a QA team and they need to give them the right information and resources so that they can test and verify the fixes to the correct standard.
• Perform - This is when you actually test the game. Start testing the bug that has been found and find other ways to reproduce and repeat the bug so that the report is as specific, concise and detailed as possible. The more testing of the bug is done, the more accurate and detailed the report will be making it easier and more useful.
• Report - Report the findings of the bug and any information of it. This report of the bug has to be in the up most detail making sure that it is producible  (and if it's not then it's not a bug at all making it "invalid")
• Repair - After finding the bugs, the report is passed on to the development team and they and the testing team together help with fixing the bug. The tester discusses the bug with the development team to ensure that they understand the bug and what went wrong and any other additional information that is needed for the development team to fix the bug.
• Repeat  - Start from step one and test it again to ensure that the new build does not have new bugs produced from the fix.
  

 

 http://gametesterlife.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/bug-life-cycle11.jpg

The picture shown above is a detailed illustration of the game test life cycle. [Unconfirmed] being the planning stage. What is the bug? Why is it a bug? Is it from a fix? Is it new found bug whilst trying to test a previous bug? After identifying the bug [New], it is given to the right person to test and verify it[Assigned]. The employee may verify it as a bug and carry through with testing but they could throw it back at the developers and tell them it is not a bug or that it is an old bug that has not been fixed very much at all[Resolved]. This will lead it to [Reopen] which goes back to identifying the bug again or assigning it to a new person who can test and verify the bug. If the bug is resolved and [Verified] then it is [Closed] but verification means it can go all the way back to [Unconfirmed] if a new bug evolves from the old bug then the process is to be repeated until the bug is completely [Closed].