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

• Main Authors: Lin-Kung Chen, Yen-Hung Chen, Shu-Fang Chang, Shun-Chieh Chang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: artificial intelligence; artificial neural networks; software testing; software measurement; quality management
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/19/6704

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).