«Must-haves» for reporting game bugs

The development of modern games involves a wide range of skills and personnel. One project requires whole teams consisting of different specialization representatives. The team size may vary from 10 to 100 people depending on the product magnitude. Designers, programmers, game designers, sound engineers, translators, testers -  that’s not all connected to the game creation. 

It comes to years of hard work if we would speak about the quality of the game creation. Of course, everyone wants to release a quality product with minimum defects as fast as possible. That’s why companies are using templates which allows them to save a lot of  precious time on communications between testers and developers. 

Compliance with the rules of creating bug reports allows us to grasp the main idea of bugs and navigate to which department to send the report for bug fix. It should be stated that for different projects and different companies there may be a bit different templates and standards of the bug reports. Let’s look at the features of the bug reports design in our company.

Rule 1.

Filling out the «Platform» section.

If testing is performed on PC – then «PC» should be specified, if it's a mobile device – «Mobile». Operating system names should be specified in the «OS» field (e.g. Windows), in the «OS Version» field - operating system version (e.g. 7 x64). 

Game development, just like any other software, is made on PCs - desktops or laptops. Many games are designed for video game consoles, smartphones, tablets etc. Originally, development was carried out with assistance of simulators of these devices. But, as for any model, they usually differ significantly from the original device. That’s why a game which successfully works on a simulator can have some problems with launching on the real devices. 

Besides, a lot of device producers impose software licensing. One of the necessary conditions of the successful licensing is a compliance with some technical requirements list. Even with minor deviations from requirements licensing can be refused. Then the software should be assigned back for the follow-up revision and this way the producer’s time is  wasted which leads to money loss. In addition, the licensing process, in most cases, is paid. It is, therefore, very important to check the compliance with technical requirements of the game.

Rule 2.

Proper formulation of the «Summary» section.

It’s one of the most important parts of the report. That’s why, it is essential to describe the bug in a way that the device on which it appears, its location in game and its essence are simple to understand from a bug report. 

To do this, you must specify:

-  for PC – the platform, on which testing were made (Win), for mobile devices – the device on which the check was performed (iPad 10.2, iPhone 12, Samsung А20S etc.);

- the abbreviation of localization language (if this bug is related to texts translation); 

- the location in game: level, section, location etc.;

- the summary (according to the «What? Where? When?» principle).

Important to remember, that this information shouldn’t be duplicated in the «Description» field, you should describe the essence of a bug using the «What? Where? When?» principle.

Game localization - it’s a great opportunity to conquer new markets. However, in order to justify the cost of  the localization, the company must be reassured  that players from other countries will accept the game with a bang. The most complicated translation is an adaptation of wordplay and well-established expressions, cultural references identification and its translation with appropriate intonation during the dubbing . Also, it is very important to find an actor with the voice, who will transfer emotional coloring and the regional accent similar to the original one.

Often, localization is a task for a separate team, sometimes for individual companies. It depends on the size of the game, but it may even be foreign companies. As native speakers are more informed about cultural differences, peculiarities of some words and fixed expressions. Localization also includes formats for currencies, numbers, times, phone numbers, etc. If the game uses the original font, a similar font for the alphabet is created separately. Depending on the visual component of the game and features in the program code, programmers can make changes to the software or create the separate files for more convenient way of the translation.

The company is interested  in a well adapted product for a specific target audience in compliance with cultural characteristics. However, the pace of the development of the gaming industry doesn’t give time for the relaxed and measured work. Every department must work fast and efficiently, as parts of one huge mechanism. Therefore, if a bug is found, it is necessary to fix it as soon as possible. While reading the summary of the bug designed in the way below developers do not waste time figuring out what kind of defect it is (localization, mechanics, design etc.) and for it’s search by the levels.

Rule 3.

Detailed description of the defect.

Every game related bug report has to contain the following information:

• the platform and device on which a check was made with the OS version (Win 10x64, Samsung А20S Android 11 etc.);
• the summary and description of a bug;
• the build number on which a test was performed;
• the steps to reproduce;
• the actual and expected results;
• the justification (checklist, lockit etc.).

Bug category may be mentioned for some projects.

What is a checklist and how to work with it is described in detail in our blog article. What is a lockit? It’s a calque from English localization kit and it’s a data packet (document) which is supplied by a client which consists of all game texts on all supported languages. Often this term means just a file with the necessary translations.

What is a build? In simple words - it’s a game version. Every game has a build number. In the development process, the project is tested, and sometimes you need to know which version and which build number is installed by a tester or other participant of the process. The behavior in one build may differ from the behavior in another, for this, you need to clarify in which one exactly the bug was detected. Before checking a bug fix, you need to make sure not only that the required version is tested, but also, the required build. The error may have already been detected and fixed in the next version / build.

Often, the development stage is also written next to the build number to describe the degree of game readiness - Alfa or Beta. The stages can either be officially announced and regulated by the developers or sometimes the term could be used informally to describe the state of the product. 

It should be noted that the Beta and Alpha stages are not instability indicators, because they are assigned to the game once or once per series, depending on the development system.They can be assigned to several released versions in a row.

Rule 4.

It is necessary to specify the name of the game.

It can be specified in steps to reproduce or in the additional information field. The company may have a lot of projects, and often the same people work on several projects at the same time. Therefore, it is important to specify in which specific game the bug was found.

Rule 5.

Technical terminology usage.

Among people united by one profession and bound by one type of labor activity, there is a need for an accessible, accurate and concise designation of the specific phenomenon. Terms serve as special, clear designations. They are unambiguous within the scope of application and lack the expressiveness, unlike general vocabulary words which are often ambiguous and expressive. In order to understand the essence of the bug as accurate as possible, special terminology is used.

Rule 6.

Grammar framing.

Despite that passive voice is mostly being used in the bug descriptions, in game bugs the active voice is often appropriate. You need to pay attention to the essence of the error and choose the appropriate grammar for a particular case. It is also extremely important to correctly combine words, establish the logical and causal relationships between the elements of sentences.
At first glance, information on filing bug reports for bugs in games seems complex and voluminous, but in practice everything is much easier. We recommend you to study the bug reports examples for games, lockit / checklist screenshots, and other useful information in this article.

Summing up, we can say that by using templates, the company saves a lot of time on communications between departments. Сlear, well-structured grammatical framing and well-composed formulation of the error essence helps in fast search and fixing of the bugs. All these, at first glance, little things reduce the time of the product release and provide the modern consumer with constant new good-quality products.