An Automated Testing Framework for the Virtual Cell Game

Abstract

The NDSU Virtual Cell game is a role-based, multi-user computer game developed to aid in learning cellular concepts in biology. It is developed using client/server architecture with Lambda-Moo as a server and web-based Java swing applet as a client. The Lambda-Moo (Legacy) Virtual Cell has several limitations, including development environment, performance, and maintenance. Therefore, a new virtual-cell system was developed using the Java-Moo framework to overcome the limitations of the legacy systems. The focus of this paper is to propose, design, and implement two strategies to perform functional conformance testing between the legacy and new Virtual Cell gaming system. The Automated Testing Strategy performs simulation-based testing by automating the game play using XML test cases as an input. The Record and Replay Test strategy captures the test cases of the Virtual Cell (Lambda-Moo) in an XML document and executes them in the newer version (Java Moo).