Testing & Verification: API Error Handling

Objective

Students must test API error scenarios and ensure the game handles failures gracefully.

Evidence

API error handling in game components:

  • GameLevelOutside.js - API error handling for NPC interactions
  • Leaderboard system - Error handling for score submission
  • Image loading - Fallback handling for missing assets

Implementation Details

  • Try/catch for API call failures
  • Status code checking
  • Network error handling
  • Timeout handling
  • Fallback behaviors

Test Scenarios

  • API server unavailable
  • Network timeout
  • Invalid response format
  • CORS errors
  • Authentication failures

Error Recovery Strategies

  • Retry with exponential backoff
  • Graceful feature degradation
  • User-friendly error messages
  • Fallback to cached data
  • Log errors for debugging

Key Concepts

  • HTTP status codes and meanings
  • Network error types
  • Resilience patterns
  • User communication for errors