Processed graphics in game development: quality assurance and testing

Abstract

While AI-generated and otherwise processed
assets are still relatively new topics, their less sophisticated
counterparts are not. Custom-made generated graphical assets
may be useful in game development as placeholder assets for
prototyping, background graphics for side scrollers or simple
character sprites. There is another possible use of them in the
f
i eld of quality assurance and game testing, particularly live
playtests (playthroughs by actual human players instead of
algorithms). QA can be done by game developers, publishers
should they choose to do so or players and in some cases by
mod authors and mod users (provided the game in question can
be modded at all). Following article explores actual, already
released, practical examples of such modifi cations in the form
that they were considered as “most useful for the end user” and
fulfi lling their intended task. All of them, as well as principles
they are based on, can be useful for the development of future
games and interactive content in professional or academic
settings, since the base assumption of wanting to produce best
possible quality of work that is suffi ciently optimized and can work on PCs of varying performance levels is universal to both
of them.