The 2 Most Crucial Skills In Game Testing

Writen by Matthew Roberts

There are two major skills that are absolutely crucial for a game tester to have.

I'd even go as far to say that even with all your qualifications and experience, without these skills you'd find it very hard to get a game testing job.

What are they you ask?

1. You must be able to communicate effectively.

I'll put in another way for you:

You must have great communication skills. By this I mean you need to be able to express exactly what your thoughts are so that everybody is on the same terms and knows how to go about fixing the issue.

2. You must be able to transfer these good communication skills into your writing.

When programmers are reading your bug report, they need to know exactly what the problem is and how to reproduce it. They don't want to waste any time trying to understand what you have written.

Your writing needs to be clear enough that anybody in could pick up the bug report and understand what the problem is and how to fix it.

Now don't get me wrong, none of that is easy to do, even for those that are natural speakers or writers. But there are a few relatively easy exercises you can do to improve your communication and writing skills.

Exercise 1

This exercise involves choosing a simple object (such as a paper clip, watch, flower etc) and without actually hinting to what the object is, writing a description of how to draw it.

Then see how many people can follow your instructions and draw the object, then correctly guess what they have drawn.

Exercise 2

This is an extension of the previous exercise, but bringing the game testing aspect into it.

Next time you are playing a game and happen to find a cool glitch, rather than just showing your friends, write a description of the glitch and email it to your friends to see if they can reproduce it.

Exercise 3

This exercise simply acts to improve your writing skill, but if you do it correctly you might be able to use it as an example of your expertise in the video game industry.

The exercise involves starting your own blog. You can do this for free at blogger.com

Your blog could include game reviews, latest game news, cheats and tips... and of course descriptions of glitches.

Remember, these exercises don't have to be done all the time (however the more often you do them the better you will become), the key is to develop a simple routine to practice your writing skills.

It's going to take time but when it comes to game testing, you are going to have to do a lot of writing... and the only way to improve your writing is to practice.

For more FREE information on how to become a game tester, be sure to visit The FREE How To Become A Game Tester Course