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              <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E"><img src="../../images/icons/ph_final.jpg" width="193" height="237" align="left"><loonystart>Vol. 
                2, Issue 7<br>
                December 23, 1999<br>
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              <div align="center">
                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="3">Pad 
                  Happy:</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="6"> 
                  Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Game Testing</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">by 
                  <a href="mailto:nickf@writeme.com">Nick Ferguson</a></font></p>
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              <p align="right">&nbsp;</p>
              <p align="right">&nbsp;</p>
              <div align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i>Nick 
                F tells it like it is to all you wannabe testers...</i></font></div>
              <br>
              <p align="left"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="../../images/letters_new/i.jpg" width="10" height="39" align="left">&nbsp; 
                &nbsp;had a slight problem coming up with a topic for this week&#146;s 
                column, as I haven&#146;t played a console game for a few weeks 
                now (believe it or not, this is supposed to be a column about 
                the console scene). I could blame this bizarre and ungodly situation 
                on a number of things, but a burgeoning number of <b>Half-Life: 
                Counterstrike</b> sessions after hours at Creature Labs would 
                be chief among them. Mmmm, <b>Counterstrike</b>... So in an attempt 
                to come up with some alternative copy, I got to thinking about 
                <a href="../../2.5/pipe/index.html">RadPipe&#146;s 
                Down The Pipe from a few weeks back</a> (where he pondered working 
                in games), and decided I might as well share my experience of 
                getting my foot in the door of the games industry.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My job 
                at <a href="http://www.creaturelabs.com/">Creature Labs</a> is 
                actually my second industry job &#150; my first was as a tester 
                at a major UK developer, which, I'm, sure, would prefer to remain 
                nameless (that&#146;s a big clue in itself). I got the job straight 
                from university: I went for an interview during April, and was 
                offered a job in the testing department a month before my finals, 
                which was great but I cannot tell you how hard that made it to 
                revise properly! So, after a number of months vacation to ponder 
                my good fortune I was officially a games tester. Cool! I think 
                the best way to explain the realities of testing would be to list 
                a few of the commonly accepted &#147;facts&#148; about testing 
                and then comment on their accuracy (or lack thereof). Yes, let&#146;s 
                do that...</font></p>
              <h3 align="left"></h3>
              <h3 align="left"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">&#147;Testers 
                play games all day&#148;</font></b></h3>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
                One of the first things people will ask if you tell them you&#146;re 
                a games tester is &#147;Wow! You mean you play video games all 
                day long and get paid for it?&#148; Admittedly the honest answer 
                is &#147;Yes&#148;, but therein lies an assumption that &#147;playing 
                games all day&#148; is actually fun. People outside the industry 
                often fail to realise that testing is not really &#147;playing&#148; 
                games as you and I would normally play them &#150; my experience 
                is that it&#146;s more the sort of thing you might do when you&#146;ve 
                played a game to death and want to eke a few more hours worth 
                of entertainment out of it (i.e. trying to climb the castle in 
                <b>Mario 64 </b>without using the cannon). It is also important 
                to remember that testers do not get to choose the games they test 
                &#150; for every lucky soul playtesting <b>Perfect Dark </b>or 
                <b>Shenmue</b>, there are thousands of others lumbered with much 
                less exciting fare during their 9-to-5 (in the spirit of Christmas, 
                I won&#146;t be mean and single out any game in particular).</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">One way 
                to imagine &#147;playtesting&#148; is to think about a recent 
                game you played &#150; not one that was outstanding or excessively 
                awful, just a game mediocre in its fun quotient and middle-of-the-road 
                in terms of replay value. Now imagine playing that game for four 
                or five months in a row, ten hours a day, every day. Not only 
                that, but it is most likely your own testing schedule will focus 
                on only two or three levels in that game (although eventually 
                you will be expected to know the entire game inside-out). If you 
                are still thinking &#147;Hey, that&#146;s OK, it&#146;s still 
                playing a game...&#148; trust me - you are not in the correct 
                mindset! Don&#146;t get me wrong - testing could be quite a lot 
                of fun, but at its core it involves mucho repetitive and painstakingly 
                slow, methodical work.</font></p>
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. Pad Happy is &copy; 1999 Niick Ferguson. All other content 
  is &copy; 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited, 
  so watch it - we know kung fu, gaijin.</font></i></p>
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