107433 - QUALITY ASSURANCE AND BALANCE OF THE GAME

Subject type: Mandatory

Coordinator: Juan José Pons López

Trimester: Third term

Credits: 4

Academic year: 2025

Teaching course: 4

• Spanish

The subject will be taught mainly in Spanish.

The subject "Quality Assurance and Game Balancing" is composed of two blocks:

• Quality assurance: the entire testing process that takes place in real video game companies is studied. From the basics (what is testing, what is a bug and how is it reported...) to more advanced testing techniques (boundary-value analysis, pairwise testing, etc.). The most important task of this blog is the creation of a complete test suite of an existing video game, where the student will have to use all the knowledge learned in the course.
• Game balancing: we will study the sections of balancing games that usually have the most problems (sustained uncertainty, inequality between players and dominant strategies). The most important techniques are studied to mitigate these problems and propose solutions. We'll take an in-depth look at case studies like Clash Royale and Hearthstone.

Block 1: Quality assurance

Topic 1: Fundamentals of testing

1. What is testing?
2. Type of testing
3. Approaches:
   • Black-box testing
   • White-box testing
4. Testing levels
5. Fundamentals of Black-box testing
6. The 7 principles of testing

Topic 2: Testing design techniques

1. Ad hoc testing/ exploratory testing
2. Pairwise testing
3. Equivalence partitioning
4. Boundary value analysis
5. State/transition coverage
6. Negative testing
7. False positives and negatives

Topic 3: Management of testing

1. Regression testing vs retesting
2. Priority vs Severity
3. Bug report
4. Phases of testing and development

Topic 4: Evolution of the tester in the world of work

1. Requirements to work in video game companies
2. Grow in the world of testing
3. ISTQB
4. What should I do now if I'm interested in testing?

Block 2: Game Swing
Topic 1: Introduction to game swing

1. The teaching of game balance is the teaching of game design
2. What is not game swing?
3. The five questions of the game swing
4. Games as systems
5. Types of swinging games (or purposes)
6. Absolute game swing and perceived game swing
7. How can a game be balanced?
8. Balancing experiments of typical games
9. Balance Design Document (BDD)

Topic 2: Sustained uncertainty

1. Initial level of the challenge
2. Increasing the level of challenge
3. Dynamic challenge adjustment
4. Emergency and open worlds
5. Fight positive feedback loops
6. Non-skill based actions in multiplayer games

Topic 3: Equality between players

1. Temporal asymmetry: advantage of the first movement
2. Asymmetry of characters in power games and turns
3. Character asymmetry in physics and real time-based games
4. Internal asymmetry of the characters in the group
5. Team and game asymmetry in multiplayer games
6. Asymmetry of characters in games based on persistent worlds

Topic 4: Equivalent strategies

1. Object-based strategies
2. Action-based strategies
3. Situation-based strategies
4. Time-based strategies
5. Economic strategies
6. Gaps: strategies based on exploitation and metagaming

The grade of each student will be calculated following the following percentages:

A1. Group work Test suite. 12,5%

A2. Laboratory practices. Development of Methodologies. 12,5%

A3. Partial examination. 25%

A4. Group work. Assessment of swinging in a board game and a video game. 25%

A5. Final exam. 25%

Final note = A1 0,125 + A2 0,125 + A3 0,25 + A4 0,25 + A5 0,25

Considerations:

• You must obtain a minimum grade of 4 in both the exam average and the assignments average. The average of both sections must give a minimum grade of 5 to pass the subject.

• Any late delivery of activities will score a maximum of 8.

• In the activities carried out in groups, the teacher will be able, according to the information at his disposal, to personalize the qualification for each one of the members of the group.

• In the case of detecting plagiarism, copying or fraud in any evaluable activity or test, this will automatically obtain a final grade of 0. Additionally, in cases of copying or fraud, both the person who copies and the person who allows copying are responsible for their conduct, and the consequences of the conduct affect all students involved in the irregular action. Regardless of the suspension caused by plagiarism, copying or fraud, the professor will communicate the situation to the Department Management so that the applicable measures are taken in terms of disciplinary regime and the initiation of the relevant disciplinary file.

• Misspellings, writing errors and formal and technical problems specific to the subject will be penalized with 0,10 points, up to a maximum of 2 points, in all assessable activities and tests.

Recovery:

• It will be necessary to get at least a 5 in the final exam to pass the subject.
• The maximum mark for the remedial subject is 6.

Game Balance

Game Development Essentials : Game QA & Testing

Game Testing: All in One

ISTQB

Uncertainty in Games

The Art of Software Testing