Sidhe Interactive
Testing
Testers are kept on staff and are constantly playing builds of games; they try to trip the game up and find all the bugs. These testers are searching for specific things, which is why that part of the job can be quite monotonous.
Usability testing is very important for game development in general. This involves bringing in people from outside who haven't seen the game before, seeing what issues they have with it, what they don't understand. There is a big difference between someone who's been intimately involved with a project, working on it from start to finish, and to whom it's obvious how the game works to someone from the outside who has never seen the game before. Bringing in someone who hasn't played it quickly shows what is not clear and things that need changing.
When making a game like Gripshift the team works out who the target market is and brings in people who have played certain games before or conversely requests people who haven't played specific games (on the grounds that they'll be potentially biased towards a particular game and try to play the new game in the same way, which could be an issue).
Having outsiders, rather than the team who had become really good at it, play Gripshift resulted in design changes to difficult structures. Even after Gripshift was released the team still found things they would have changed. Andy says that it's a process of refinement and that nothing is right until it's been released about six times. Until thousands of people have played they will never answer all the questions and are aware that they're not going to please everybody.
It can be a tricky balance getting something a new player can succeed at while also challenging more skilled gamers.
Sidhe has set up its own usability laboratory which works alongside the testing laboratory to find faults in the game. This is a very involved process but the game gets better and better because of it.
Once a game is finished from an internal point of view it is sent off to the manufacturer. A development manual goes off to Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo to be approved by them.
A huge document covering technical requirements follows this. When it is approved and released they will frequently find some small thing which requires iteration.
