Comment by tetha

I've ended up with similar thoughts about automated testing in games too.

I really enjoy having automated tests and automated tests solve problems. Like, I absolutely love our molecule test suite for our infrastructure code and it gives us huge value. The smoke tests we have for the infrastructure running after deployments are amazing. It's liberating in an environment of rapid and chaotic changes everywhere, complex interdependencies, as well as pressure on top.

However, if I try to transfer that kinda approach to a game it just... fails?

But the realization is: In games, many behaviors and systems are actually far simpler and less intertwined in arcane ways, and code changes actually less frequently and dramatically than at work.

I could see structured testing in e.g. turn based strategy games and such, so you can test that the culture per turn is correctly calculated based off of many different situations and such.

But in many smaller projects I've had, you write some janky code, make sure the enemy behaves as expected... and never touch or change that piece of code ever again. And it just doesn't break, because no fundamental part below it ever changes, because then the entire house of card would fall apart.

It feels dang weird, but it works very well for smaller projects.