Contents  Introduction  Code Complete  Content Complete  Game Complete  The Point  Printable version

Up until this point we have just been dealing with your average software product. We’ve had design specifications, programming, asset creation and testing, but while all these pieces go into making a game, they don’t make the game.

In any software development project you will have some pieces that depend on others, and can’t be made until the dependencies have been completed. When you have areas of software that are new and haven’t been created before, or are in a cutting edge field where the best way to do things remains unknown, then you have to plan for this mystery. You must try to think in advance how you will tackle the problem and test along the way to determine if your original concept will work, or if you need to find another way to implement it successfully.

This is the same process as developing a game. If the arena you are working in is totally explored, which is often considered boring by gamers because they’ve done it before, then you have to consider your gameplay to be an unknown element of your product.

As such, you may not be able to determine if your game is going to be fun and work in the way you originally designed and hoped it would. While testing as the programming and content are being created will hopefully be possible, it isn’t until both the programming and content for at least one section of the game is completed that you can truly test your gameplay and the final experience your players will have.

If your game is consistent in gameplay and each mission the player performs the same actions, you will only need a single mission’s full content to test the gameplay of the game as long as the code is also at a functional level.

Once your gameplay has been tested and you are satisfied with it, you still aren’t game complete. Being game complete requires that the you already be content complete and code complete, in as much as you can be code complete while still making changes.

In other words, game complete testing must come at the end of beta testing. After you have already determined that your program is without software bugs, and your content is complete you can begin to test your game.

Your game is more than just your engine, your graphics, your sounds, your gameplay and your story. The concept behind creating a game is to take all of these components and form a synergy, where the experience is worth more than the sum of its’ parts. To achieve this synergy, all the parts themselves must be complete, or else you don’t really know how the final experience will be taken in by the player.

For this reason, there is a final stage of testing a game that comes after where other products stop.

Once you understand this, you should be able to see where testing your game after all the programming and content have been completed is necessary.

Next : The Point