Introducing automated testing to video game development via Behaviour-Driven Development

Michael Mulder; Petra  van den Bos

doi:10.5381/jot.2025.24.2.a5

Introducing automated testing to video game development via Behaviour-Driven Development

Michael Mulder
, Petra van den Bos^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

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Abstract

Game Software Engineering has emerged as a specialized field distinct from traditional software engineering, addressing unique challenges inherent to the creative process of game development, but lagging behind in using new methods of software engineering. This paper introduces the method of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) to game software engineering. BDD is popular in software engineering for modelling and testing software. In this paper, we first propose a development process for applying BDD in game development. Then, we provide an integration of BDD tooling in Unity 3D, a major platform for game development. Next, we present a framework for identifying and categorizing game behaviours, to cater for modelling game behaviours in BDD scenarios. Finally, we show applicability of these three contributions on a real-world case study.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-14
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of object technology
Volume	24
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5381/jot.2025.24.2.a5
Publication status	Published - May 2025
Event	21st European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications, ECMFA 2025 - Koblenz, Germany Duration: 10 Jun 2025 → 13 Jun 2025 Conference number: 21 https://conf.researchr.org/home/staf-2025/ecmfa-2025

Keywords

Behaviour-Driven Development
video game development
automated testing
software engineering

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10.5381/jot.2025.24.2.a5Licence: CC BY

ArticleFinal published version, 321 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Introducing automated testing to video game development via Behaviour-Driven Development",

abstract = "Game Software Engineering has emerged as a specialized field distinct from traditional software engineering, addressing unique challenges inherent to the creative process of game development, but lagging behind in using new methods of software engineering. This paper introduces the method of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) to game software engineering. BDD is popular in software engineering for modelling and testing software. In this paper, we first propose a development process for applying BDD in game development. Then, we provide an integration of BDD tooling in Unity 3D, a major platform for game development. Next, we present a framework for identifying and categorizing game behaviours, to cater for modelling game behaviours in BDD scenarios. Finally, we show applicability of these three contributions on a real-world case study.",

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doi = "10.5381/jot.2025.24.2.a5",

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N2 - Game Software Engineering has emerged as a specialized field distinct from traditional software engineering, addressing unique challenges inherent to the creative process of game development, but lagging behind in using new methods of software engineering. This paper introduces the method of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) to game software engineering. BDD is popular in software engineering for modelling and testing software. In this paper, we first propose a development process for applying BDD in game development. Then, we provide an integration of BDD tooling in Unity 3D, a major platform for game development. Next, we present a framework for identifying and categorizing game behaviours, to cater for modelling game behaviours in BDD scenarios. Finally, we show applicability of these three contributions on a real-world case study.

AB - Game Software Engineering has emerged as a specialized field distinct from traditional software engineering, addressing unique challenges inherent to the creative process of game development, but lagging behind in using new methods of software engineering. This paper introduces the method of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) to game software engineering. BDD is popular in software engineering for modelling and testing software. In this paper, we first propose a development process for applying BDD in game development. Then, we provide an integration of BDD tooling in Unity 3D, a major platform for game development. Next, we present a framework for identifying and categorizing game behaviours, to cater for modelling game behaviours in BDD scenarios. Finally, we show applicability of these three contributions on a real-world case study.

KW - Behaviour-Driven Development

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Introducing automated testing to video game development via Behaviour-Driven Development

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