journal article·2020-09-25Open access

A Long/Short-Term Memory Based Automated Testing Model to Quantitatively Evaluate Game Design

Lin-Kung Chen, Yen-Hung Chen, Shu-Fang Chang, Shun-Chieh Chang

Applied Sciences· Volume 10· Issue 19

Abstract

The mobile casual game application lifespan is getting shorter. A company has to shorten the game testing procedure to avoid being squeezed out of the game market share. There is no sufficient testing indicator to objectively evaluate the operability of different game designs. Many automated testing methodologies are proposed, but they adopt rule-based approaches and cannot provide quantitative analysis to statistically evaluate gameplay experience. This study suggests applying “Learning Time” as a testing indicator and using the learning curve to identify the operability of different game designs. This study also proposes a Long/Short-Term Memory based automated testing model (called LSTM-Testing) to statistically testing game experience through end-to-end functionality (Input: game image; Output: game action) without any manual intervention. The experiment results demonstrate LSTM-Testing can provide quantitative testing data by using learning time as the control variable, game design as the independent variable, and time to complete game as the dependent variable. This study also demonstrates how LSTM-Testing evaluates the effectiveness of different gameplay learning strategies, e.g., reviewing the newest decisions, reviewing the correct decision, or reviewing the wrong decisions. The contributions of LSTM-Testing are (1) providing an objective and quantitative analytical game-testing framework, (2) reducing the labor cost of inefficient and subjective manual game testing, and (3) allowing game company boosts software development by focusing on game intellectual property and leaves game testing to artificial intelligence (AI).
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Artificial Intelligence in Games · Sports Analytics and Performance · Educational Games and Gamification

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Mathematics and Applied Mathematics (Finance and Statistics), School of Information Engineering, SanMing University, SanMing 365004, China

Department of Information Management, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei 112, Taiwan

Department of Nursing, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei 112, Taiwan

Department of Business Administration, Shih Hsin University, Taipei 116, Taiwan

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