🟦Quality Assurance

TIPS FOR BEGINNERS

Quality Assurance is all about making a game work reliably and ensuring it's fun. This requires a lot of testing and thinking outside the box for how different players may accidentally or purposely "break" your gameplay.

These "bugs" affect individual players who discover/trigger them. Test frequently and isolate problems until your gameplay works consistently. The simpler your logic and 3D design are, the easier this stage is!

Game Production Guide Navigation 🟥Concept 🟧Blockout 🟨Logic 🟩Art 🟦Quality Assurance 🟪Polish ⬜Marketing

5. FINAL

Mission 1

VERSIONING

Make a Backup

Before you begin making final changes and adding polish, duplicate your Experience and add the word "Beta" to the end of the name. This provides a copy of your Experience before you will begin adding polish and modifying logic to fix bugs, which can lead to issues later and may need to be referenced to revert to the original logic used in some cases.

Mission 2

FINAL LOGIC PLAY TESTING

Check for accuracy. Character names, quest descriptions, quest items, variable labels in the HUD, etc. are correct when comparing the text and the gameplay.

Check logic thoroughly to ensure that it flows properly as a complete game.

Use our testing recommendations to know what common issues to look for. When you play through your Experience, you need to intentionally try to "break" the gameplay to see if it continues to work properly when players do what you don't expect. Make note of any issues with collisions, physics, dialogue, quests, rules, interactive objects, equipment, etc.

Fix any bugs you can resolve in this final review. Refer to your "Beta" copy of your Experience from Mission 1 if you need to revert logic to the original setup.

Is it fun?

This is your last chance to modify your gameplay to make it more enjoyable.

If it fees like something is missing, carefully consider what you can do to increase the fun for your player audience without breaking existing logic or reducing performance. Even adding a simple new mechanic can completely change the fun factor and replay value.

Review resources about your chosen game genre in the Experience Guide to reflect on your game loops and consider feasible adjustments you can make with the time remaining.

Mission 3

FINAL ASSET REVIEW

Check the asset list to ensure that every planned asset has been created, tested, approved, and added to the Experience.

Ensure that the correct Catalysts have been applied to your drafted assets (which will not be minted) to keep the gameplay balanced. If minting equipment for players to purchase, ensure you own enough of the correct Catalyst NFTs to ensure the value you built into the NFTs is correct when minted.

Explore the Experience and ensure that all assets are functioning properly with no visual defects and no impact on game performance. If any assets need to be iterated, get them done quickly and replace them in the Experience.

6. QA & MARKETING

Mission 4

IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

Troubleshooting Singleplayer Performance

If the whole Experience is not performing smoothly, reduce the number of assets and/or remove assets with high face or node count. Optimising assets may make it possible to replace rather than remove assets.

If there are only certain areas of the Experience that consistently perform poorly, consider the logic being used in those moments and the assets in those areas. Perform some tests to see if you can reduce or remove the problem.

Troubleshooting Multiplayer Performance

The same troubleshooting for Singleplayer applies to Multiplayer, but there's also an important extra consideration to make: synchronised logic. Most often, performance issues related to multiplayer involve multiplayer bandwidth for networking being too heavy. Learn more about Multiplayer Logic.

Check to see how many behaviours and components you've used that are high or medium bandwidth. Remember, when you apply a behavior or component, the multiplayer versions are grouped by bandwidth use with coloured icons so you have a clearer idea of the impact each one has on gameplay performance. Simplify some of your logic with lower bandwidth options if your Experience is struggling to synchronise objects, avatars, etc.

Mission 5

DEBUG BROKEN GAMEPLAY

Use the Debug menu to trace the flow of logic, use the target icon to open for more details, and try to isolate the cause of unexpected bugs that are preventing logic from flowing correctly.

You may not have enough time at this point to correct the problem as smoothly as you would like. Make a judgement call to remove broken logic, modify it with a simpler option, or delay your project launch if needed to get it done the way you want.

Though your project has probably changed a lot since you saved your "Beta" copy, you can refer to it to help decide whether your polish or bug fixes are important to prioritise fixing or not.