Zork Grand Inquisitor

November 5, 1997

The Light at the End of the Tunnel
By the time you read this, Zork Grand Inquisitor should be in stores. The journey that began for me on June 1, 1996, is winding down to its final steps.

Fittingly, I want to relate what happens as a game moves from the under construction phase to the code released phase.

Finalizing the Game
Of course our biggest concern as we move towards wrapping things up is squashing bugs. There is a variety of bug types. Some are obvious - the game fails to run. Others are more insidious - if you do these four steps, then a fifth one will not be possible. Finally, there are compatibility problems, which only cause ill effects under certain hardware configurations.

Our quality assurance department (QA) plays the game as many times as possible. They check a multitude of systems, collections of drivers, and common hardware setups. They write lists of problems encountered while trying each object on every hot spot and casting every spell at anything that moves. In essence, they live Zork Grand Inquisitor.

Every day they report bugs to us, ranked by priority. Obviously, if the game is not solvable (if a certain puzzle doesn't work), then they call that a showstopper. Other ratings are high, medium, and low. Sometimes they will make suggestions as well. Our plan is to fix every possible bug. As of this afternoon, we had only a handful of open problems to be addressed.

QA represents you, the player. If QA discovers a problem, then you probably will too. Our goal is to make the game as fun, as intuitive, and as solid as possible. Anything else would diminish the game experience and fall below the level of quality that the Activision label represents.

Putting together the accessories