Mysterious things that cause games to not work

[CodedGames]

Hey guys,

 

So I'm in the process of selling one of my games; I got everything working in Chrome, Safari, Opera, IE, Edge, Firefox, Android Browser, Safari on iOS, and the company's own game runner. Sounds like everything is good right?

I even set my Android VM to the lowest possible specs when trying their game runner. My game still ran fine.

 

Well I send my game to the company and they say that the game never starts with screenshots of a blank screen. I ask them if they get any error messages in the console and they say they got none.

 

So do you guys have any idea of what mysterious things could cause a game to work fine for me but not for them? Any help is really appreciated.

[Antriel]

I once went into lengthy (2 weeks+) discussion with QA of certain company. The scenario was exactly the same, game worked for me, didn't work for them. I asked for console output couple times, never got anything out of them – they avoided the question.

After couple rather heated emails they finally sent me url where they test the game. I didn't even ask for that, I asked for console output, but whatever. I navigate there, see it doesn't work, look up console: missing file. They didn't upload game.js file.

 

So my recommendation? Ask them for the url they test on, I seriously doubt there's nothing in the console, they probably don't know what it is.

[BitOfGold]

Just throwing some ideas at you:

 

- web-protection module of antivirus software (had some problem with avast...)

- local proxy of ISP (some mobile ISP -s agressively compress images)

- local setting of an obscure fireawall

[mattstyles]

Just write in big letters: BUT IT WORKS FINE ON MY MACHINE!

 

Ha ha

 

Add to the list:

 

* localisation stuff—I've seen many apps crippled by regional differences

* You've almost certainly done this but make sure your own testing areas are totally clean

 

I think @Antriel might be on the right track, get their test url/s, total failure of your app sounds like something fundamental, particularly if it fails on all of the platforms.

[CodedGames]

Just write in big letters: BUT IT WORKS FINE ON MY MACHINE!

 

Ha ha

 

Add to the list:

 

* localisation stuff—I've seen many apps crippled by regional differences

* You've almost certainly done this but make sure your own testing areas are totally clean

 

I think @Antriel might be on the right track, get their test url/s, total failure of your app sounds like something fundamental, particularly if it fails on all of the platforms.

 

What do you mean localization stuff because that potentially could be a problem. Could you go into a bit more detail about that?

[bruno_]

Ask them if there is anything in the console (dev tools - F12)

[CodedGames]

Ask them if there is anything in the console (dev tools - F12)

 

I did, they said there wasn't which is very strange. That's the whole reason I made this topic.

[mattstyles]

Does your game use any external service to get bootstrapped? One that maybe serves to your country but is restricted in the country the company are looking at your game in?

 

Or does your game set up any sort of payment stuff? That sometimes happens differently in different countries.

 

You could try giving them a dev build to try, one that pushes notices to a server your set up somewhere, kind of like remote console logs, then just set up logs to log every major point of your setup code i.e. log when the script/s are included in the page, when you've loaded some stuff etc etc.

 

It does sound more like they havent served it correctly. 

[CodedGames]

I found the problem.

 

Like Antriel suggested, I asked for a URL, immediately opened the console and found a few 404 errors.