What is the difference between functional testing and regression testing in game development?

What is the difference between functional testing and regression testing in game development?

• A. Functional testing verifies features work as intended; regression testing verifies that new changes do not break existing features.
• B. Functional testing checks performance metrics; regression testing checks load times.
• C. Functional testing tests only non-player features; regression testing tests UI.
• D. Functional testing is about marketing; regression testing is about branding.

Answer: (A)

Functional testing focuses on whether features work as they’re supposed to from a player’s viewpoint—does pressing a button open the menu, does the inventory update when items are used, do quests track progress correctly, and so on. Regression testing checks that after any changes, fixes, or new content, existing features still behave correctly and nothing that used to work has been broken by the update. In game development, you’d use functional testing to validate core gameplay mechanics, controls, UI flows, save/load behavior, and similar features. After making changes, regression testing re-checks those same areas to ensure stability across builds. The other descriptions miss the core idea: performance metrics or load times relate to performance testing, not the functional behavior of features; focusing only on non-player features or UI is too narrow for what regression testing covers; and marketing or branding is unrelated to testing.

Functional testing focuses on whether features work as they’re supposed to from a player’s viewpoint—does pressing a button open the menu, does the inventory update when items are used, do quests track progress correctly, and so on. Regression testing checks that after any changes, fixes, or new content, existing features still behave correctly and nothing that used to work has been broken by the update. In game development, you’d use functional testing to validate core gameplay mechanics, controls, UI flows, save/load behavior, and similar features. After making changes, regression testing re-checks those same areas to ensure stability across builds.

The other descriptions miss the core idea: performance metrics or load times relate to performance testing, not the functional behavior of features; focusing only on non-player features or UI is too narrow for what regression testing covers; and marketing or branding is unrelated to testing.