A message from our QA Lead, Bozhidar,
Hey guys,
I know most of you are excited to get your hands on the backer build. We’ve worked very hard to bring it to you.
One thing that we are personally excited about is the feedback we get. General impressions, as well as discussions about how the game feels on the first playthrough and after that, are very important to us.
Another thing that is very important is the bug reports. We have added a quick and easy-to-use in-game method to report bugs. When you encounter a bug, just hit F10. The game will capture the current screenshot. You can click on the screenshot in the bug report. This will allow you to draw on and highlight any issues on the screen. You can also submit your name or email address along with a title and description of the bug. When you send the report, all of this information along with anonymous system data such as hardware configuration and the game’s logs will be sent directly to the Snapshot Games QA team.
That is the most basic gist of how the bug reporting works. However, since most of you probably don’t have previous experience working as Quality Assurance testers, there might be a few things you don’t know that could be of great use to us. Most of what I will mention here is covered in this video by Extra Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntpZt8eAvy0
To quote one of my favourite movies of all time:
“Oh, you’re a villain, alright! Just not a SUPER one!”
“Oh, yeah? What’s the difference?”
“PRESENTATION!”
Same goes for bug reporting. It’s all about the way you present your findings. Here are a few little things you could do that will help us immensely:
- Please try to be descriptive as possible. If you encounter any issue, try to remember how exactly it happened and give us all the details you can.
Example: “The game crashed when reaching the bridge.”
A lot of people might think that this short description is enough. However, it does not give us any details as to which unit reached the bridge, on which turn, or any specific actions that were taken before reaching the bridge itself. Knowing how to reproduce an issue as accurately as possible is very important to us.
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Try to see if you can force the same bug to happen more than once. Consistency is key. If we know how to recreate one issue and isolate it, then we will be able to avoid it in the future. Not only that but going through the motions can reveal more details about the nature of the issue.
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Create a short summary of your steps.
Example:
a. Launch the game and reach the Action Phase (basically the loaded level where the player has control)
b. Select the Sniper.
c. Make him run behind the nearest cover.
d. Click on his Overwatch ability.
e. End your turn and notice that the game crashes.
This is a very simple way to list all of your actions in chronological order. It’s simple and quick and it helps us immensely.
- Criticism is always appreciated, just make sure that it’s constructive and have a suggestion if able. Stating simply that “this looks bad” doesn’t help us. Try to be as descriptive as possible when talking about these things.
Example: The free aim mode’s UI elements require a bit of a graphical update. Right now it looks very bare bones and clashes with the high-tech fantasy of the game. Things that can be taken as inspiration: [insert any high-tech, sci fi shooter]
Remember, all of these are just basic suggestions. You can go into more detail if you like, send us more screenshots, send us videos of critical bugs, and so on. We also don’t want you to worry too much about it. You want to play the game, not report all the bugs we weren’t able to catch. At the end of the day, we want you to have an amazing experience playing our game, and helping us understand what’s wrong will definitely work towards that goal.