Testing a Game

Before launching a game for actual players, it is extremely important to make sure that all tasks are displayed correctly, codes are accepted without failures, and hints arrive on time.

Any author can test the game in one click, straight from the editor: the “Test the Game” button in the top bar opens the game in a new tab. If the draft has unsaved changes, the editor first lists them and offers to save — the test shows what is on the server.

At the bottom of the page a tester gets a panel a player does not have. Every testing tool lives in it: they used to be scattered over the page, now they are collected into tabs.

• Collapse and expand it by clicking the red “Testing the game” caption on the left, an empty spot on the bar, or the × on the right. The × only collapses too: the panel holds the script-error block, and it cannot take it off the page altogether.
• The height is changed by dragging — by the bar itself or by the thin handle above it. A double click brings the default height back.
• Whether it is collapsed is remembered within the browser tab; the height, across reloads.

The number next to a tab's caption is its counter: for “Tasks” it is “opened out of all”, for “Templates” how many templates were parsed, for “JS errors” how many distinct failures there are.

At the top — the tools:

• “Rewind time” — not “plus ten minutes” but “jump to the nearest timer on the page”. There is no need to actually wait for a hint. If the level has no timers, the button does nothing.
• “Game editor” — a link to the editor of the whole game.
• “Restart the game” (red) — wipes the team's progress entirely and starts from the first level.

Below — “Task order”, if the game has more than one order. Picking an order applies nothing by itself: it shows that order's scheme in grey numbers, set off by a line on the left, and it is applied by a restart — the “Restart from level 1” button or “Restart from here” on a chosen level.

This is not a flat list of numbers but the structure of the game: sequential levels go to the right through ›, storm branches hang downwards off a common bar, a random order is marked with ?.

A level's state is visible in its number:

Below the scheme is the action row. Until a number is picked, it holds the current level.

• “Go there” — simply open the level, the course of the game stays as it was. It exists only for an open level: into a passed or a closed one the engine will not let you, and on the current one there is nowhere to go.
• “Restart from here” (red) — wipes the progress and marks the path to this level as passed, as if the team had walked here itself. In a storm the neighbouring branches stay closed.

Clicking a number no longer restarts the game. The first click only picks the level and shows what can be done with it. A second click on the already picked number is “Restart from here”: on a phone numbers get hit by accident, and a restart cannot be undone.

Both actions are ordinary links, so a level's address can be copied and sent to the author.

Not every tester may change the order: for an invited team the jump between levels works, but picking an order quietly does not apply.

It shows what the engine did with the {% match %} templates on this page: which template, which value was checked, which branch fired and what the options were. Nested templates are shifted to the right — they were parsed only because the branch above them fired.

• Hover a row — what that branch put in gets highlighted on the task.
• Click the row — the page scrolls to that spot.
• The arrow to the left of the name unfolds the branch's own text.
• Clicking an option shows the task as if that branch had fired.

While a branch is picked by hand, a yellow banner stands above: the task is shown not the way a player will see it. Take it off with the “put it back” button or by clicking the same option again. The substitution lives until the browser is closed and is visible only to you.

This is how you check a branch you could not reach otherwise: an individual task meant for another team, the ? branch, the “no answer yet” branch.

The current task in the editor without leaving the game: the text, the codes, the bonuses, the hints. This used to be a folded block above the task — now it is a tab.

The editor is opened from the admin host, and its session is its own. If you have not signed in there, the tab will hold a login form, and you cannot sign in inside it. Then use the “Open the editor in a new tab” link, sign in there, and the tab will work.

Everything about the game as a whole — the settings, the task order, a task's number — is edited in the game editor: the “Game editor” link is on the “Tasks” tab.

It is not there while all is well; the very first error in a script shows the tab and opens the panel by itself, even if the panel had been switched off.

Errors are caught in the scripts of tasks, hints, bonuses and spanning bonuses, and also the asynchronous ones — from setTimeout, fetch and async functions: those used to fall silently. Identical ones are folded into a single record with a counter.

Deliberately not recorded: errors from browser extensions and the nameless “Script error.” from other domains — that is not your code, and in the log they are nothing but noise.

A missing tab means there is nothing to show, not that something broke:

• “Codes” — every code, bonus and spanning bonus of the level; a click puts one into the answer box. It is seen only by the author of the game or an admin of the domain. An invited team of testers does not see the codes and plays blind, like players do.
• “GPS” — there only if gps is switched on for the task. The status, the map, the marker zones and the coordinate override; details on the GPS codes page.
• “Actions” — there only if the server markers did something on this load. Markers merely being present do not create the tab.
• “Templates” — there only if at least one {% match %} was parsed on the page.

The “Test controls” switch is in the game's menu: the hamburger at the top right, the “Settings” section, the last switch. It hides the panel, but not for good: the very first script error brings it back and opens it on “JS errors”.

To have no panel at all — for screenshots or video, say — open the game with ?debug_panel=0. ?debug_panel=1 brings it back. Mind that the tester is then left with no tools whatsoever.

You can invite outside players or whole teams for independent testing:

1. The team of testers submits an ordinary application to your game on the site.
2. In the “Applications” block on the game page two buttons appear next to that team: “Accept” lets the team into the game for real, “Allow test” — only for testing.

1. Once accepted, the team can enter the game at any time (even before the official start).
2. Testers play in the absolutely real game interface: the codes of the levels are not visible to them.

An invited team gets the tester panel too — without the “Codes” tab and without the right to change the order. A restart and rewinding time are available to them, on the “Tasks” tab.

The author of a game can apply as their own team and accept it as testers. This lets you check how the game looks on your teammates' screens.

Note: In that case every member of your team gets access to the game before it starts. Make sure the members of your team are not actual participants of the coming game.