GDC-1.0-It's Raining New Content: Rapid Test Iterations

by Benjamin Seifert ( QA Lead - Riot Games )



Look for analysts, not testers.

QA must be ready to commit no matter the project.

QA pick-a-path: Subject Matter Expert (SME), People Management, and Project Management.

                QA should be committed to pick-up on any of these.

Automated testing will catch things such as FPS drops.

Test things to see if it is fun for players.

Feedback playtesting comes in the forms of company play, intra-team, and inter-team play.

“Is the cool new spider monster engaging?” // this is a question on the Twisted Treeline map

QA starts by giving feedback on character concepts.

Challenges: Continual training and innovation along with a lack of documentation.

Strive to reach a 0-bug build.

‘Pain Score’: Each bug has this; if the score is low enough, a build is released.

Content is the lifeblood of LoL.

4.1.13 - A Fury Void Update

The last time writing was indicating that Team Fury had moved Fury Void from Alpha-phase of development to Beta-phase deployment.  Since then, a massive collection of advancements have allowed Fury Void to stride to a final release in the coming month.

To refresh the reader of what Fury Void is, it is a frantic, top-down space shooter combining the random madness of Asteroids with the fast-paced blasting of a ‘bullet hell’.  Over the course of the past seven months, a team of 4 students has put together one of the most successful games of the Dakota State University Game Design program; steps to completing that success are as follows.

Major tests have been conducted on the behalf of the game.  The first one of note was during a presentation at March’s start.  This presentation exposed major gaps that may be included in the design of Fury Void; optimal destruction meters, planet labeling, flavor text inclusion, and further elaboration on the capabilities of the ship were not apparent/were wanted by the audience.  Much more was discussed, but Team Fury would encourage all to attend the monthly presentations to garner what Fury Void is doing.

Later, Fury Void was exposed to the local Game Design group established by Dakota State University.  From that, much feedback was recorded as well as the event was a mark of the first time that Fury Void was mass-tested under the supervision of the entire team.  The main points of feedback consisted of the game being addicting, there needs to be a bit of context given to actions, the Xbox controller needs to support axis aiming, and instructions need to be given to the player.  Lastly, an optimization gauge should be added to judge when a player can move on from a play space; this feature is now on the top of the development list.

Fury Void has been proven to be a fun and addicting game, but it is still a fallible game.  Thus, the following bugs have been handled as-of-late: There was text pixilation of filler and intro messages, but that is corrected; The ship body no longer is ripped from the ship when a black hole is created; Enemies are on the minimap; The intro cinematic text is centered on the screen; Xbox controllers support any axis shooting; and, music and sound plays everywhere.

The final bit to cover would have to be minor features being added or tweaked in gameplay.  The Difficulty option available to the player has been moved to the Ship Switching screen.  Enemy weapon shots have visible light trails added to them.  Enemies now have the code structure to be randomly spawned in-game.  Any text option that is selected is visibly highlighted.  A ‘warp zone’ has been added to identify where the player can go to change solar systems.  In closing, a smaller arena has been created ( a feature added that was lost at some point in the version control software ).

To come, here are some of the features on the development list.  First, time orbs in the liking of the energy orbs are to be implemented; they would add time to the clock so the player could play longer.  An optimal destruction gauge is on the top of the creation list; this gives an indication as to when the player has done their duty in the given system in destroying enough of the solar system they are in.  Additional customization options should be given to the player; ship speed, health, agility, and damage are to be included.  Context to what the player does and why they are doing it is of utmost importance; this feature will require a bit more thought.

Before the next report, there will be more playtests and even some professional advice given on the game at the Game Development Conference.  Please pay attention to the changes to come, check-out Fury Void on Facebook, and play a beta here.

3.1.13 - A Fury Void Update (Goodbye, Alpha)

March 1^st marks the last day of Fury Void’s official Alpha-phase development.  In the past 2 weeks, the rush to get features into the game has been full of vitality, but avoided any sense of ‘crunch’.  The following is a summary of what was completed to hail Fury Void into its time of Beta.

To follow-up on the reporting last time of saved games, profiles now may be loaded.  The previous standalone save feature was only usable in the fact that Fury Void would let Team Fury know if a save had been made, and of what variables, while developing.  When loading a saved game, thus far whatever ship was selected last time is automatically selected, along with the player’s choice of weapon and score.

When objects are destroyed in-game, the player’s score grows.  Now, when those point-giving objects explode, a pop-up of the point total for that object is displayed.  It appears quickly, and then leaves.  Such a feature delivering this form of visual feedback to the player is hoped to have only beneficial consequences when Beta testing is conducted.

Further development of the previously mentioned black holes has led to a few new tweaks.  The first is that black holes spawn in-game given a random probability when a sun is destroyed.  Second, the black hole no-longer pulls objects in indiscriminately; neither do the holes warp themselves in the 3 dimensions of the play-space, as restrictions have been added to their movement.  The third tweak would be that the black hole visually grows in the game to help show the reach of the object.  And again, the player will be caught by the black hole – there is no way to escape a black hole’s pull forever.

A note on AI enemies would be that patrolling, shooting ‘drones’ are now in-game.  They currently are manually generated without the random placement featured in the rest of Fury Void, but refinement of the feature is to be handled in the coming weeks of the Beta-phase of development.  However, these enemies currently dodge out of the way of planets, they occasionally dodge the player’s fire, and follow randomly created pathing-nodes if they are not chasing-down the player.

Next, an introduction text cinematic has been included at the start of the game.  It gives credit to Star Wars in how the message of the game is presented (scrolling up into infinity).  The screen of the cinematic also has a soundtrack to play while watching the screen in an attempt to keep the player’s senses fully engaged when watching the cinematic.  Lastly, a simple button press will allow the viewer to escape to the main menu, as Team Fury hopes to include further details on the game being played.

On weapon switching, more options have been added for the player’s options.  All weapons can be assigned different colors in their projectiles, while development of engine color, weapon effects and damage, and player speed is currently underway.  Future tweaks will likely be greatly influenced by player feedback.

To scheduling, the week preceding March 1st was to host the feature-lock of the game.  Team Fury proudly met this goal, with time to spare.  In reality, Beta-phase was instantiated on Wednesday of the week, putting Fury Void on an early track for the coming Beta development.  This occurrence spurned an in-house QA walk-through of the game, keeping a special eye to any and all bugs, things that need a visual or code tweak, and places were additional functionality would be key.  A list was compiled, and now offers a constant reservoir for future issues and issues that have yet to be handled.

The week after March 1^st is considered Spring Break, and will most certainly dampen the work put forward by Team Fury.  However, many tasks scheduled for the week are of a brainstorming and sit-and-think variety.  If any work is to be done on the Fury Void game, handling the ever-growing bug list will keep any team member busy.  After Spring Break, major changes specific to the Beta-phase will take place.

With what has been laid-forth, Fury Void is safely said to be one of the top 2 best developed games of the Dakota State University Game Design program.  Team Fury is excited to present their game to the world, but is arguably just as excited to work on the project, as every week sees accomplishments made.  If interested, the final Alpha-phase build is online, and Team Fury encourages all to play it and give feedback to any member of Team Fury or at furyvoidgame@gmail.com.