How I Came To Be A Game Tester ….

So how did I get into game testing? Quite by chance really. I was already a committee member of the IGDA and had already met the majority of the guys who made up the rest of the committee. All of them were involved in some way in the game industry and some worked at Ideaworks 3D. Jim Verhaeghe is a Producer whilst Mickey is a Junior Designer, and Dean is a Game Tester. The Sims 2 Mobile was in production at the time and the company were wanting game testers who were familiar with The Sims to test the game. My friend Tamzin is a big Sims fan so Mickey sent me an email asking whether she would be interested in testing the game. Unfortunately, for her she was busy with research at the time (and gutted that she couldn’take the opportunity to test) so I offered to test instead. I was called for an interview a couple of days later and it was the best interview I’ve ever had. What can be better than being asked questions about my favourite games, and what aspects of games I really enjoy. I was interviewed for the best part of an hour by Carlo, and then Jason Cumberbatch, the QA Manager came in to say ‘hi’ and explain what happens when a game is tested. As you’ve probably guessed, I was successful at my interview and was completely overexcited on my first day and I had no idea what the experience would be like. On my first day walking into the big office I noticed how quiet everyone was. Having been used to working and chatting simultaneously I didn’t even dare cough. It was soon apparent that it was a friendly quiet atmosphere. Basically, over the next few weeks the testers played parts of the game, or sometimes just played through as much of the game as we could. If there was any aspect of the game that didn’t work correctly or looked like it shouldn’t be there we had to list the details on a bug report. Not only does a game tester have to determine the seriousness of the bug, we also have to provide a summary, followed by a detailed step-by-step procedure of how to reach the bug from a certain point in the game. This is not as easy as it sounds and a lot of concentration is needed. I really enjoyed my 40 hours work at Ideaworks3D and have since been called back to work on some software evaluation for Jim. Of course, I can’t talk about it …