As a student, I see a lot of things from a very different perspective than some of my coworkers.
Hi, I’m Aaliyah a 16 year old high school student who is going into her junior year, I don’t have a lot of job experience. So when I heard about 7 Generation Games -a video game company that focused a lot on Native American culture -, I jumped at the opportunity. Testing new games, reporting bugs, and even writing blog posts is all part of my job as an intern.
Testing the games is the main part of the job. It could be a different game everyday, multiple games in a day, or even the same game for a week, it really just depends. So far I’ve tested an abundance of games such as: Fish Lake Adventure, Making Camp Ojibwe, AzTech: The Story Begins, and Making Camp Bilingual. As I’m testing the games, I go through the whole game a few times to really get the feel of the game. Some may think that sitting playing video games in the same position for 3-4 hours a day must get old. But this is a really important part of developing video games because this allows developers to identify where games are crashing and need to be fixed, and most importantly, when you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t feel like you’re working.
As I’m testing these games, I look for things called bugs. Bugs are basically anything that is in the game that needs to be fixed. Bugs can be anything from overlapping words/numbers on the screen to being completely blocked out of the game. As a game tester, I have to make sure to test all of the games in different ways- the installation process, giving all correct answers, all incorrect answers, basically try to break the game so you -the final user- gets a smooth and fun playing experience. Whenever I find a bug, I report it into a site called Bugzilla. Once I choose what game I’m testing and have checked to see that no one else has reported it, I jot down the severity of the bug, what it is, and anything else that seems relevant.
Though I love all aspects of my job, I do have a certain thing I like about it. The people are amazing and have been so helpful. I love being surrounded by screens for a few hours and feeling like an “adult”, if that makes sense. But my favorite part about being a game tester is the knowing that I’m helping students better themselves by doing something that everyone loves: playing video games.
I haven’t been an intern for long but 7 Generation Games is a company I am very proud to work for and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for this amazing company.
Now that you know how it is being a beta game tester at 7 Generation Games, why don’t you try some of our demos? Maybe you’ll come across one I’ve tested! They’re pretty cool!
Click here to explore our free games
