Guilty Party
Guilty Party is a mystery game for up to four players on Wii. Players investigate crime scenes, question suspects, and combine clues to identify the culprit. Its cooperative Story Mode follows the Dickens Detective Agency, while Party Mode uses a mystery engine to generate new cases for players to solve together or competitively.
Testing the Mystery Engine
One of Guilty Party’s central features was the variety of mysteries it could generate. I worked directly with the mystery engine developer and the other on-site QA team member to test hundreds of generated cases through a text- only web application. We checked the clues manually, compared them with the intended culprit, and used the application’s validation information to investigate unexpected outcomes.
The clues narrowed suspects by attributes such as hair length and gender, much like Guess Who. Together, they needed to identify exactly one culprit. Because the cast of suspects changed between generated cases, we also had to check that the clues did not contradict each other and pointed to a suspect who was actually present in that version of the level.
Connecting QA and Development
I was one of two QA team members based with the development team, connecting developers with Disney’s external QA team in California. The external team tested the builds sent to them, while we could work directly with developers on specific features and changes before they reached those builds.
Alongside that work, I handled smoke testing, Nintendo Lot Check tests, bug reporting, and regression testing. I gathered information from developers and consolidated external reports to help clarify issues. Looking back, working that closely with development gave me a better understanding of how to investigate a problem and communicate it in a way that helps someone resolve it.
See the Game
Articles
The Mystery Engine: Doug Zartman’s Retrospective ↗
Doug describes the engine’s use of more than 3,000 clue items and billions of possible combinations.
Guilty Party on Metacritic ↗
An aggregate score of 78/100 from 13 critic reviews.
Destructoid Review ↗
A review discussing the game’s presentation, personality, and replayability.
Nintendo Life Review ↗
A review of its family multiplayer appeal, accessibility, and mystery modes.