How to test a network game on a mobile device

Question

I am looking to test a network game with say, 10 or more users, on a mobile device. Think of it like an MMO with a lot less users. (Assuming I can get 10 running, I'd test for more users later)

The test is for two reasons :

1. To see if and how the server will handle that many users
2. To see the performance on the client side (seeing how it has to update/render all these objects on a mobile device)

How would I go about testing 10 or more users? Unfortunately I do not have 10 devices to test on, only one. I've seen a few MMOs available on Android/iPhone. How do these developers go about test their game on devices?

Answer 1

I'm not sure about the Android platform as I have no experience with it. However, for the iOS you may be able to use something like TestFlight. You can also generate ad hoc distributions to beta users manually (you need their device UUIDs, I believe).

Also, since you're testing the server, you should be able to do load/stress/packet loss testing with fake clients that run on desktops (and thus you can run multiple clients per desktop machine to get a higher stress level). You can build packet loss simulation into those fake clients as well.

You could also implement game state recording/playback, play the game yourself for a little while, and then play back that session over multiple connections (starting each new connection at an offset time).

Artificial methods of testing are, of course, not going to reveal the same problems as real users. But they can still help and they're much easier to do as early phase testing since you don't need to involve so many real people.