In a multiplayer shooter, a grenade sometimes damages the player who threw it, even when they are well outside the blast radius. The grenade's explosion is triggered by a server-side script. What should you investigate?

The grenade's fuse timer, which may be too short, causing it to explode near the thrower.

The player's network latency, which may cause the server to misjudge the player's position.

The client-side rendering of the grenade, which may show the explosion in the wrong location.

The server-side collision detection for the grenade, looking for a logic error in the damage radius calculation.

A player uses a fire spell on a water-covered floor and the game crashes. This defect is best classified as:

A requirement misunderstanding about spell effects.

A logic error in the spell's damage calculation.

A boundary issue with the spell's range.

An unintended interaction between the fire spell and the water floor.

In a puzzle game, a level becomes unsolvable if the player moves a specific block before collecting a key, but the game doesn't prevent this. The level designer says the block should be immovable until the key is collected. What is the most likely cause?

A boundary issue in the key collection detection, where the key is not detected at a certain position.

A design flaw in the level layout, where the block is placed in a way that makes it movable.

A logic error in the block's interaction code, where the condition for movability is missing or incorrect.

An unintended interaction with the player's inventory, where the key is considered collected even when it isn't.

A game's scoring system awards double points for a kill when the player is also standing on a specific platform. The tester reports that the score is incorrect. What is the underlying cause of this defect?

The score displayed to the player is wrong.

The game has a bug in its rendering of the score.

The player is standing on the platform while killing an enemy.

The platform's effect is unintentionally applied to the kill score.

In a strategy game, a unit's special ability sometimes deals double damage to friendly units. The game designer says the ability should only affect enemies. What is the symptom and the most likely cause?

Symptom: friendly units take damage; cause: an unintended interaction between the ability and the unit's armor.

Symptom: double damage to friendly units; cause: a boundary issue in the damage calculation formula.

Symptom: ability affects friendly units; cause: a requirement misunderstanding where the designer actually wanted friendly fire.

Symptom: friendly fire occurs; cause: a logic error in the target selection code that fails to filter out friendly units.

Certified Tester Game Testing

Domain 2Objective 4

Examples of Defects in Game Mechanics and Possible Causes CT-GAME Practice Questions (Page 1)

Part of the Testing Game Mechanics domain, which makes up ~12% of our current practice bank. ISTQB does not publish an official question count, but from its 60-minute exam (~25–40 total, ~3–5 in this domain), expect 1–1 from this objective — we provide 18 practice questions to prepare you well beyond it. (estimate)

18questions here

4free pages

4concepts

Questions 1–5

1application · medium
In a multiplayer shooter, a grenade sometimes damages the player who threw it, even when they are well outside the blast radius. The grenade's explosion is triggered by a server-side script. What should you investigate?
Select an answer first
2foundation · easy
A player uses a fire spell on a water-covered floor and the game crashes. This defect is best classified as:
Select an answer first
3expert · hard
In a puzzle game, a level becomes unsolvable if the player moves a specific block before collecting a key, but the game doesn't prevent this. The level designer says the block should be immovable until the key is collected. What is the most likely cause?
Select an answer first
4foundation · easy
A game's scoring system awards double points for a kill when the player is also standing on a specific platform. The tester reports that the score is incorrect. What is the underlying cause of this defect?
Select an answer first
5application · medium
In a strategy game, a unit's special ability sometimes deals double damage to friendly units. The game designer says the ability should only affect enemies. What is the symptom and the most likely cause?
Select an answer first

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