Suggestions for QA

S

SgtMoose

Guest
Hey everyone,

I'm wondering what the best practices are for QA and getting feedback on a game in general.

For my current game, I have gotten feedback from at least half a dozen people who have generously offered feedback, but I feel the game could benefit from dedicated QA testers.

I read about how Naughty Dog did QA testing during the development of Uncharted 4. To get feedback from the general video game player population, they set up a computer room with a build of the game on each machine. Also on each machine was screen-recording software and webcam to gauge player behavior both in-game and out-of-game.

I thought I would do something similar. My idea is to have an in-game feedback/reporting feature where the player can give a rating, write feedback, and submit it. The submitted feedback would be packaged and sent to an email address for review. Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to send an email from GameMaker using GML?

Other than that what other QA methods do people recommend?
 

curato

Member
If you got a budget and a good build you could always set a booth up at a small con and get the feedback in person record the seasons or throw it up on a big screen to show off and you can watch them play as well.
 
You need at least two types of feedback that I can think of.

One is regular QA testing during development to find bugs and give general feedback. Hopefully you can find someone to test your game every week and play it inside-out looking for bugs and other areas that need improvement.

The other is the type of feedback Naughty Dog were capturing, and that is fresh players who have never seen your game before, who sit down and experience the game for the first time. This can give invaluable information on what the impression your game makes. What might seem blatantly obvious to you and your regular tester because you know your game inside out, may be completely different to first time players. That's why they had screen captures and webcams setup, so they can see exactly what parts are received well, and what parts might be confusing.

For the first type of regular tester, its probably better to have a regular communication channel like email or messaging programs to send feedback.

For the second type of tester, you want to be there in person to see how the players react and interact with your game at a minimum, or go for the full setup like Naughty Dog did.

If I was a regular tester for a game, I don't think I would be interested in filling out an email form from within the game itself. Plus it might be difficult to attach/send extra information like screenshots of bugs from within the game.

So my recommendation is that you don't need a feedback form within the game, just sign up some regular testers and have email / real-time chat channels to talk to them with.

The feedback form might be useful once your game is released, and regular players can send info when they find a bug etc...
 
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