Confessions of a Video Game Tester

I am now working as a video game tester (yes, it is the best job in the world).

Here are some random (fictional) bugs I came up with for fun:

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During a test playthrough of 'Urban Darkness' the user noticed a striking resemblance of one of the NPC's to his grandmother. After taking a quick census of the office, it became obvious that she looks like everyone's grandmother. Given that in order to pass the lever you have to bash her head in with a blunt potato peeler then rip out her heart and eat it, do you think that the graphics could be changed a little?

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While testing the game, the user was, in reality, attacked by a horde of mutant alien zombies. By coincidence, the 'Read Me' button on the installer actually started a rather powerful mutant alien zombie ray gun which instantly turned the invaders to dust.

Testing department requests the button be relabeled. Although installation during a mutant alien zombie invasion is an unlikely user path, if it does happen again the user is unlikely to click 'readme' and mankind might be doomed.

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While testing 'Little pink furry animals 3' for girls aged 3 to 6, the user discovered that after the completing the game 32 times his home life was affected (he was no longer able to get an erection). This could (in time) reduce future tester candidates.

In order to alleviate this problem, we suggest a special 'tester' mode should be made available in which squashing those damn furry animals lets the user to unlock a secret 'island of nyphos' level.

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While testing in game menu functionality of 'Left out in Space' the tester noticed that if the player returns back to the game from the in game menu and gets suddenly attacked by a monster, this would frequently result in an uncontrolled expulsion from the rear resulting in a damp messy seat, bad odour and an uncomfortable testing session. The only Fix to this problem seem to be a change of pants. As this was frequently encountered by the user and wearing a nappy was not considered a user friendly workaround, the testing dept. has given this a Critical severity.

Note the user found the title so scary that perhaps a fast key should be implemented to allow the user to quickly and easily call "Mummy !".

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While testing the game the user found an Easter-egg first person game hidden on the DVD. We are not asking for the game to be removed, but rather specifically request the game (called "Castle of the unfeasibly large breasted nympos") not to be removed, as might end up the case.

Personal NOTE: in this game, um, how do you pass the 'satisfy all the bitches' level as we don't seem to be, er, 'large enough' (yes, we ARE still talking about the game).

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While testing the user encountered difficulties with the nudity and simulated sex scenes withing the game. The resulting arousal caused discomfort (amplified by the testers tight Jeans) and could have been embarrassing if anyone noticed. We acknowledge this might be quite an uncommon user path because although it was 100% reproducible with male testers, it was only actually a problem because we are all really well hung.

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While testing the user found that the game sucks. Dude, are you kidding me?

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While testing the user found that during installation, if a sodium silicate vessel containing H2O was emptied over a fellow user, said user emitted profanity an responded by breaking the keyboard over the other users head.

In this case the install was interrupted and the game failed to install as intended is this intended?

Safari vs Firefox

I recently reinstalled my OS. I just did a fresh install of Windows Xp, not because I like it but because I don't yet have the funds for a MAC and my computer wont run Vista (or Windows 7 for that matter).

I took the excuse to try a different Browser. I installed the latest Safari browser from Apple. It's got some great features. You can browse you history using cover flow with safari. It shows reasonable size previews of the websites you've visited in a flowing bookcase like way (the same way iTunes does it), making it a breeze to find a size you visited the other day even if you don't know what it is called.

Safari also shows you twelve of your most often visited sites (or you can 'pin' your favorites) as a preview every time you open up a new tab (ctrl+t).

Apart from that (and a bunch of other feature I probably don't know about), Safari has a great apple-like interface consistent with itunes and OS X.

However despite this (and being an avid Mac OS X fan) I think I like firefox more. Firefox just worked more like I do. I appreciate the logic in putting the tabs up in the title bare to save screen real estate, but I still like the firefox way better.

I didn't notice too much speed difference, I think 'sometimes faster-sometimes slower' is probably appropriate and really this is not a big deal for me.

I guess I just like having a home button available by default (although it wasn't too hard to turn this on in safari) and the way 'find' works in firefox.

I'm writing this in a Safari window, but I think I will install Firefox any day now. I might try to keep using Safari long enough to make sure my dislikes are not born out of habit. If Safari doesn't grow on me, then I'm going back to Firefox.

One thing is for sure, they are far superior to IE. Why anyone would still use Internet Explorer is beyond me.

Yes, I guess I should try chrome (I once tried opera, but liked that not one bit), at lease the underlying technology implemented in chrome looks excellent, I just want to see if Safari is better than Firefox (or Firefox is better than Safari) first.

I'll keep you posted.