An Agent-based Approach to Automated Game Testing: an Experience Report

TL;DR

This paper reports on using an agent-based framework called \\ivxr\\ for automated game testing, demonstrating its flexibility and effectiveness across different game types, including complex 3D games like Space Engineers.

Contribution

It introduces an agent-based testing framework for games and discusses its application to various game types, including complex 3D environments.

Findings

Framework effectively tests different game genres.

Agents can be driven by traditional testing algorithms.

Successful testing of a complex 3D game, Space Engineers.

Abstract

Computer games are very challenging to handle for traditional automated testing algorithms. In this paper we will look at intelligent agents as a solution. Agents are suitable for testing games, since they are reactive and able to reason about their environment to decide the action they want to take. This paper presents the experience of using an agent-based automated testing framework called \ivxr\ to test computer games. Three games will be discussed, including a sophisticated 3D game called Space Engineers. We will show how the framework can be used in different ways, either directly to drive a test agent, or as an intelligent functionality that can be driven by a traditional automated testing algorithm such as a random algorithm or a model based testing algorithm.