Exercises

1. ‚	What are the top two factors that would help you decide whether your company should automate its game testing?
2. ‚	What are the main reasons you may not wish to automate testing?
3. ‚	What are the main reasons you may wish to automate testing?
4. ‚	Which types of games are best suited for test automation?
5. ‚	Which aspects of game testing are best suited to automation?
6. ‚	Using the SimScript commands presented in this chapter, write an automated test to move a guitar from coordinate (10, 10) to coordinate (40, 40), "play" it to increase your " music_skill ," and then move the guitar back to (10,10). Be sure to verify the success of each operation you attempt.

Answers

1. ‚	The two factors are how well your department is run and whether or not you are behind on your project.
2. ‚	You may not wish to automate testing if you are unwilling to invest in the staffing and game infrastructure changes that are necessary to make test automation successful.
3. ‚	Improved game reliability, greater tester and machine efficiency, consistency of results, faster testing, and the ability to simulate tremendously large numbers of concurrent players for stress and load testing without having to use large pools of human testers are good reasons to automate.
4. ‚	Online multiplayer games, first-person shooters, puzzle games, and mobile games are all suitable candidates for at least some degree of test automation.
5. ‚	Play sequences, repeating actions, user interfaces, and randomly walking through game worlds are all useful applications of test automation.
6. ‚	Whenever an object or player attribute or property changes, make sure you are checking (logging) before and after then change. The following SimScript-like sequence implements the test described for this exercise: # guitar test log_objects place_object guitar 10 10 log_objects move_object guitar 40 40 log_objects set_data avatar guitar_skill 0 use_object guitar shred wait_until avatar guitar_skill 100 log_objects place_object guitar 10 10 log_objects