Guildhall Producer Series, Part 3: Issue Manager for Bug Tracking

I am pleased to work currently as a producer for three 2D student-created games at the Guildhall at Southern Methodist University. Each team consists of four underclassmen and I. 

Revenge of the Dragon King is a game based on Journey to the West, one of Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The Dragon Ball manga is also based on the same novel. In Revenge of the Dragon King, players control the Dragon King in a side-scrolling “bullet-hell” game—a game where players must move about the screen in a cautious manner to avoid the bullets of enemies. Raging Sushi: Enter the Roll is a side-scrolling beat-‘em-up in the same vein as The Simpsons Arcade Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, and ­X-Men arcade game where players move about the game screen in a pseudo-3D manner. Salvage Runner is a game that looks like Galaga in an asteroid field, controls like SkiFree, and plays like a “bullet-hell” game. In Salvage Runner, players try to dodge asteroids and debris while outrunning an oversized antagonist who constantly pursues the player.

These three game projects serve as the first time that many of the team members have been exposed to bug tracking. This blog post demonstrates a tutorial from Raging Sushi: Enter the Roll's Asset Development Plan for helping team members navigate to Issue Manager, and open, resolve, and close bugs.

ISSUE MANAGER FOR BUG TRACKING

Raging Sushi: Enter the Roll Logo

Dan Irish, producer of Myst III: Exile and author of The Game Producer’s Handbook, believes that quality assurance and gameplay testing are the two most important steps in the software development process. In The Game Producer’s Handbook, Irish explains further: “Quality assurance and gameplay testing ensure that the product works as designed and that it provides sufficient functionality, usability, and fun to be attractive to critics and end users alike.”

In the industry, Irish notes that the producer usually takes on the role of bug resolver. The producer’s role is to listen, learn, and provide resolutions for reported bugs. The assistant producer usually assigns bugs to the right team member or team lead.

In practice at the Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, in the larger-team capstone games and especially in smaller-team games, most if not all team members test the game weekly until Beta begins and extensively during Beta. When a team member finds a bug, they report it by using IssueManager. Below, an excerpt from Raging Sushi: Enter the Roll’s Asset Development Plan demonstrates a tutorial for navigating to IssueManager, opening a new bug, resolving the bug, and closing the bug.

Quality Assurance Plan 

Component Testing

 Each team member adheres to the applicable approval process as outlined in the Asset Approval Process section.

Integration Testing

Build Plan 

Issue Manager

Issue List

Connect to Network Bug Testing Database

View Your Issues

View Issues

Add a New Issue

Add Issue

Administration of Priority Assignment

Administrator Assigns a Priority

Administration of Issue Closing

Administrator Closes Issue