Game testing is crucial to ensure a smooth, engaging, and bug-free experience for players. Game testers help identify issues, known as “bugs,” which can range from minor visual inconsistencies to major gameplay-breaking problems. For beginners in game testing, understanding the types of bugs to look out for is key to thorough testing and reporting. Here’s a list of the most basic bugs that testers need to check for in games.

1. Gameplay Bugs

Gameplay bugs are issues that directly affect the player’s experience and gameplay mechanics. These bugs can disrupt game flow or make certain game features unusable, ultimately impacting the overall playability.

• Collision Detection Issues: These occur when characters or objects pass through walls, floors, or other objects they shouldn’t be able to. For example, if a player character can walk through a solid wall, it breaks immersion and may affect gameplay.
• Objective/Quest Bugs: Many games have missions or quests that players must complete. Bugs in quests, like unachievable objectives or missing items, can prevent the player from progressing and completing the game.
• Inventory Glitches: Inventory bugs, like duplicated items, missing items, or incorrect item counts, can disrupt gameplay, especially in RPGs or adventure games that rely heavily on resource management.
• Physics Bugs: Physics glitches, such as characters floating in mid-air, objects bouncing uncontrollably, or ragdoll effects going haywire, can break immersion and hinder gameplay.

Tip: Gameplay bugs are often among the most disruptive, so test each feature thoroughly to ensure a smooth experience.

2. Graphical Bugs

Graphics are a huge part of any game, and graphical bugs can ruin immersion and affect gameplay quality. Here are common graphical issues to watch out for:

• Texture Clipping: This happens when textures overlap or cut into each other, causing visual disruptions. For example, a character’s hand may clip through a door or wall.
• Texture Popping: In games with open-world environments, texture popping can occur when high-resolution textures fail to load smoothly. Players may see textures appearing suddenly as they move closer.
• Lighting and Shadow Issues: Improper lighting, flickering shadows, or missing light sources can make a game appear incomplete or poorly designed.
• Resolution and Scaling Problems: Check for scaling issues across different resolutions and aspect ratios. A game might look fine in 16:9 but have visual problems on ultrawide or mobile screens.

Tip: Adjusting camera angles and testing in different areas of the game will help you spot graphical bugs more easily.

3. Audio Bugs

Audio is essential for creating atmosphere and immersion, and audio bugs can distract players or disrupt gameplay. Common audio bugs to watch for include:

• Missing or Delayed Sounds: If there’s no sound when a player jumps or fires a weapon, it breaks immersion and can confuse players. Delays in audio, such as footsteps out of sync with movement, are also problematic.
• Looping or Stuck Sounds: Sometimes sounds continue to play after they should stop, such as background music that doesn’t change or ambient noise that loops indefinitely.
• Volume Inconsistencies: Check for uneven volume levels between different sound effects, music, and dialogue, which can make parts of the game too loud or too quiet.
• Environmental Sound Issues: In open-world or complex games, test how sounds change based on the player’s location (e.g., inside a building vs. outside). Audio bugs can occur if sounds fail to adjust properly.

Tip: Pay attention to sound transitions between different game states or locations, as these can be common sources of audio bugs.

4. User Interface (UI) Bugs

The UI is critical for providing information and guiding players through the game. UI bugs make it difficult for players to navigate, understand game mechanics, or access options.

• Missing or Misaligned UI Elements: UI elements that are missing or improperly aligned can confuse players and prevent them from accessing important features.
• Button Responsiveness: Buttons in menus should respond as expected. Non-responsive or incorrectly mapped buttons create a frustrating experience.
• Text Overlapping or Cut-off Issues: Text may overlap or get cut off due to scaling issues or improper font sizes. This can be especially common in games that support multiple languages.
• HUD (Heads-Up Display) Issues: HUD elements, like health bars, mini-maps, and scores, should be accurate and update in real-time. Bugs here can give misleading information to players, affecting gameplay.

Tip: Test the UI on different screen resolutions and device types to catch scaling or alignment issues that may not appear on standard screens.

5. Character Animation Bugs

Character animation is a vital aspect of any game, providing fluidity and realism. Animation bugs can make characters behave unnaturally and disrupt gameplay.

• Idle Animation Bugs: Sometimes, characters don’t enter idle animations correctly, or the animation may stutter, which can look strange to players.
• Transition Animation Bugs: Bugs in transitions between actions, like jumping to running or crouching to standing, can make animations look stiff or unnatural.
• Looping Issues: If animations get stuck in loops, like running or reloading, characters can appear “frozen” in place or performing the same action repeatedly.
• Animation Sync Problems: Actions like firing a weapon or reloading should match the corresponding animations. Misalignment between actions and animations breaks immersion.

Tip: Test animations from different angles and repeat specific actions (like jumping or sh00ting) to identify animation inconsistencies.

6. Performance Bugs

Performance is key to a smooth gaming experience. Performance bugs lead to frame drops, slow load times, and, in severe cases, game crashes.

• Frame Rate Drops: Testing at different resolutions and graphics settings can reveal frame rate issues, especially during high-action scenes or in large environments.
• Lag and Latency: In multiplayer games, lag or latency issues can cause delays between player actions and in-game responses. These issues are often tied to server performance and need testing under various network conditions.
• Memory Leaks: Over time, memory leaks can cause performance degradation, slowing down gameplay or even crashing the game. This often occurs after extended play sessions.
• Crash Bugs: Crash bugs are serious issues that cause the game to close unexpectedly. These need to be reported with detailed information about the sequence of actions leading up to the crash.

Tip: Testing different settings, graphics quality levels, and network conditions can help identify performance issues.

7. Progression Bugs

Game progression bugs prevent players from moving forward, disrupting the storyline and objectives.

• Save/Load Issues: If the game fails to save or load correctly, players might lose progress or find themselves unable to continue. Testing save/load functionality in various scenarios is essential.
• Level Transition Bugs: In games with multiple levels, ensure smooth transitions from one level to the next. Bugs here may cause the game to freeze, crash, or improperly load assets.
• Respawn Bugs: In some games, players respawn after losing or restarting. Ensure respawns happen as expected, and players don’t appear in odd locations or in an unusable state.

Tip: Test multiple save and load scenarios, including autosave features, checkpoints, and manually saved games, to ensure smooth progression.

8. Network and Multiplayer Bugs

Multiplayer games have their own set of issues, especially when dealing with connections, sync, and communication between players.

• Connection Issues: Multiplayer games rely on stable connections. Look for issues that prevent players from connecting, disconnecting, or rejoining games.
• Synchronization Bugs: When players see different states of the game (e.g., one player sees an open door, and the other sees it closed), it’s a sync bug. This affects gameplay balance and experience.
• Latency and Lag Issues: Test how latency affects gameplay, especially for actions that rely on timing, such as sh00ting or blocking.
• Voice and Text Chat Bugs: Multiplayer games often include voice or text chat. Check for issues with chat functionality, such as muting, volume control, or connection stability.

Tip: Test multiplayer features under different network speeds and conditions to identify connectivity issues.

Final Thoughts

Game testing involves more than just playing games—it requires a detailed approach to identify various bugs that could impact the player’s experience. For a beginner, knowing these basic bug categories can help you prioritize testing efforts and communicate effectively with the development team. By systematically checking for these common bugs, you can help ensure that the final game offers a smooth and enjoyable experience for players.