Lockit, cheat codes and other assistants for game testing

During the testing, QA engineers often use additional tools and opportunities provided by the project owner. Let us consider  the game testing types in which we need the help of supplemental instruments and study them in detail:

• Functional testing;
• Localization testing;
• Performance testing.

Functional testing includes  checking game mechanics and interaction with a game engine. Some functional tests are run with objects and locations found at later stages to reach which people spend a lot of time.Developers create additional functionality in their code called cheat code to save testers time and allow them not to go through the part of the game that they don't need to test.

Cheat Code is a part of code, a small expansion that allows testing of separate game parts (levels, locations, scenes), proceeding to them without a large part of the game, and providing unlimited resources like money and weapons to characters. 

Therefore cheat codes are necessary to save work time. Moreover, they provide opportunities that take hours, days or even months to acquire in the linear playthrough.

Popular ways to activate cheat codes:

1. Inputting cheats into the console or special field provided by the designer. 
2. Personal login to a certain social network account.
3. Creating an account under a specific name.
4. Log in to the particular Google play or App Store account (Sandbox purchases)
5. Cheat codes can be activated by default in testing builds.

Example of inputting cheat code into the console in Vampires the Masquerade BloodLines game.

In quite famous games such as GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas, it is not necessary to fill in cheat codes into the special console or log in to Facebook. Instead, a user is able to press a key combination at any moment and get what he wants. So the ways of cheat code activation only depend on the developers' style and game specifics.

The result of using the flying car cheat code in GTA San Andreas

During the testing with cheat codes, we need to understand that some defects are created because of them. In this case, such «questionable» defects should be recreated manually to ensure that these bugs will not appear in the final version without using cheat codes in the game. Some developers refuse to add cheats in their applications because they might lead to new bugs in already existing code.

Mobile game testers who don't have the required device can use an emulator. 

Emulator is a program that allows copying the behavior of another program. Developers use emulators without the necessary device on hand to be able to perform debugging of the program immediately after writing the code. 

In this case, we are interested in emulating the work of such operating systems like iOS or Android, that is, launching applications on them due to the lack of necessary components at hand.

Here we can see the video example of the Bluestacks emulator work.

However, it is worth noting that we shouldn't rely on the emulator's work completely as some bugs present on devices aren't reproduced on the emulator. Conversely, the bugs from emulators might not be displayed on real gadgets.

Localization testing checks the correct text display in the application in supported languages and the adaptation process to the cultural specificities of one or the other country: translation of documentation, user-interface elements, supplement materials from one language to another.

Since the usual tester cannot know all languages which programs support, there is a lockit for testing localization.

Lockit or Localization kit is a file containing a translation of all texts to all supported languages. 

In the first column, there is TextID. It is a unique text identifier used for the convenient localization of the application. During the work with a lockit, it is necessary to indicate TextID into the bug tracker when recording defects to fix them conveniently.

The lockit example

Furthermore, for comfortable searching for the needed text, lockit can have screenshots with elements containing this text. Finally, don't forget that a localization kit might include errors like any other documents written by people.

Learning more about the features of the testing of the multilanguage applications you can from our blog article: 

«The testing of the multilanguage applications, locale concept». 

During the game testing, it is worth measuring the program's performance to determine the load on the system with the help of special tools. The simplest instruments measure only FPS (Frames Per Second), but there are also instruments that read the load on CPU, RAM, and VRAM.

Device metrics read by GameBench

Performance testing is necessary to detect problem places in games that require additional PC resources or mobile devices. After finding such places, we create bug reports with screenshots, videos, or logs of the performance testing tools.

Here we can see an example of the work of the MSI AutoBurner functional utility.

Learning more about performance tools is possible in the «What is Frame Rate and performance testing in games» article.

The most frequent game-testing assistants are cheat codes that help test the separate parts of the game and emulators used if the QA engineer doesn't have access to the required devices. Lockit and performance measurement tools are used only in the appropriate types of testing.