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Seven Techniques for Mastering Localization QA in Video Games – Verbolabs

Most of the video games do not come in some specific language or do not promote particular countries. Video games are loved worldwide. However, for a good experience, it is essential to conduct a test very strictly on a language translation—for example, the French and Russian languages. People whose primary language is French should get a high gaming experience like the English speakers get.

The role of localization quality assurance or LQA can be seen here. Every language is verified in terms of dialogue, text, UI, supporting materials, discovering, documenting, and solving the problems arising from translation.

You could call it successful localization quality assurance (LQA) means launching a game for all players around the world, regardless of what language they speak. Their involvement is not affected by the local market and gaming culture.

Given below are the seven topmost practice methods for achieving successful LQA.

Integrate your LQA at the onset of development-

 This is the first and essential step in engaging in the LQA, keeping the primary game design side by side. It lessens your tension to some extent by decreasing the testing limit so that it can be used for other activities and efficiencies.

Let’s understand it with the help of an example. Suppose if UI and LQA are together in designing menus, elements like subtitles and status bar, commonly called HUD elements, do not require redesigning to put up for those languages requiring more space on the screen.

It might appear a little insignificant but, it affects the information received concerning the overall feel and look of the game. Menus, which take 30 seconds to 3 minutes to read, are dependent on language, and no one likes its UI integration.

3 Ts lead to failure of your game if you fail to test –

Pretest-

Before undertaking QA, many developers do not prefer doing pretesting or having a testing strategy. In short, whether it is LQA or all QA, pretesting is an essential component. It is the overall backbone of QA when in motion. Therefore I advise you to look for a pretest as much as possible. There are many phases in pretesting. They are-

  1. Deciding the appropriate progress path for the test team.
  2. Knowing and incorporating the debug tools in the overall test, which is available to QA
  3. Identify that your product is ready for localization and quality assurance readiness.
  4. Completing the documentation and reporting and fixing bugs.

Note- If the team wants to reach the peak of efficiency during the final test in less time, then, in that case, it is recommended to increase the time of the pretest.

Regression or confirmation test

When QA kicks in, it is seen that every game is changed and re-developed throughout their life. Sometimes the changes occur due to a rise in LQA, which leads to fixing bugs, sometimes creating an additional issue because of new code.

To get the relevant results in newly developed versions and to get bugs correctly placed in a development process, it is essential to do regression and bugs confirmation tests.

Test- cases

Self Contained area of the game through QA is a test case. For example- assets such as audio, textures, etc., are encompassed by the entire level of slices created by the leading developer or QA outsourcer.

It allows users to sign off on entire areas using pass/ fail criteria, which is an essential part of a toolkit for a tester.

It is beneficial for LQA, as it allows removal after a check rather than testing the whole game and fixing errors that come along the way of ensuring that the changes you made did not affect anything else.

Test cases are used for reducing the regression testing requirement, enabling good progress and coverage tracking. To get a coherent LQA strategy, it should be planned and created along with the pretest.

Utilize debug tools-  using cheats commonly known as debug tools, are the hidden resource of localization QA. Reduced playtime is allowed by a well-equipped stalk of tools during testing. The god mode and no clipping mode give better results with frequent tests.

For sharing the toolset and continuing workflow, it is essential to collaborate with your QA partners.

Try to assign your LQA to one supplier in case it requires multiple languages. It will make your life easier.

Use a Glossary– within game design, the localization team should make a glossary of essential words- weapon names, lore, and fictional languages. Glossary is vital for the one who sees the game in action after localization. It provides a base knowledge and consistent terminology, prevents translation errors, inconsistencies from breaking immersion, etc.

Multi-language teams- as mentioned earlier, for an easier life, it is important to assign it to one supplier if it requires multiple languages. Bug counts and workload can be reduced if you have a variety of native speakers in one team. For example, if there is a problem in a source language, one of the native speakers can report the problem rather than multiple native speakers.

For consistent quality, collaboration with your multi-language team is very important because a big group of teams can easily spot the errors than a small group of teams.

Collaboration: game development is a co-op experience-  as you know, integration and collaboration are important for better and faster results. Also, within games-as-a-service, integrating LQA with your localization team is important. For pretesting, it is important to have knowledge about the changes done during all subsequent updates. It will also help you to test upcoming changes much faster.

Empower your tester- it leads back to having varieties of speakers in the LQA team and collaboration. If you are a native speaker, bugs such as spelling, grammar, punctuation issues, etc., will not need to be raised as a formal ticket. It would help if you allowed your native speaker to modify text by themselves. It will help them to lower the issues in the bug database and reduce the team workload.

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