Encouraging Empathy: Attending the Women in Games European Conference 2019

I'm Tash, I joined Third Kind Games in June 2019 as a QA Technician. I also assist with production work. I enjoy learning about every part of game development, with that I enjoy attending conferences, conventions and expos to be a part of discussions, new experiences and technologies emerging. Attending a Conference Women in Games … Continue reading Encouraging Empathy: Attending the Women in Games European Conference 2019 →

Using PowerShell to Parse Log Files

This is a very short and sweet blog on a neat few lines of PowerShell I have been using to help focus on what matters in the output The D.R.G. Initiative creates. $AbsoluteFilePath = "C:\SomeLogFileFromYourGame.log" if([System.IO.File]::Exists($AbsoluteFilePath)) { gc $AbsoluteFilePath -wait | where {($_ -match "Error") -or ($_ -match "Assert"))} | Tee-Object -file "C:\SomeOutputFile.customlog" } That's … Continue reading Using PowerShell to Parse Log Files →

Let’s Play – How Designers Can Benefit from Playing More Games

This blog post has been written to encourage game designers to play more games and to highlight what game design tips and tricks can be learned along the way. Mastering a Game There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from learning how to play a game well.  Whether this is 100%-ing your favourite … Continue reading Let’s Play – How Designers Can Benefit from Playing More Games →

Bark at the Moon: Better Lua Logging

In this micro-blog, I'll showcase how we at Third Kind Games implemented better logging in our Lua scripts. In order to log something to TTY from Lua you'll typically do that following: Debug.Log("Output to TTY please!") Which is OK and will do what it says, however, in order to disable that particular piece of logging, … Continue reading Bark at the Moon: Better Lua Logging →

The beauty of tools development – Pt 1/3

A few years back I was heading up an in-house team of tools specialists at a major video game publisher.  We created a huge range of applications, everything from behind the scenes automation to fully-blown level editors and content creation tools. You won't be surprised to hear then that I've always stood by the importance of … Continue reading The beauty of tools development – Pt 1/3 →

User Defined Languages in Notepad++ for Syntax Highlighting in Log Files

Use syntax highlighting to help parse log files

Well holy smokes Batman... ... this is a useful little tip! I have just had the realisation that I can use the User Defined Language Tool in Notepad++ to enable syntax highlighting and make parsing the .log files from our game *much* easier. Lumberyard, and indeed The D.R.G. Initiative both kick out a lot of … Continue reading User Defined Languages in Notepad++ for Syntax Highlighting in Log Files →

Creating level maps in Amazon Lumberyard using satellite data

Here's a quick tutorial on how you can create very quick prototype maps in Lumberyard, using actual real-world satellite data. There's a lot you can do with this method, particularly if you don't have access to expensive terrain generating software, and it's a perfectly adequate method to use to create levels since Lumberyard's terrain tools … Continue reading Creating level maps in Amazon Lumberyard using satellite data →