Calm down. You don't have any formal education on programming, right? Relax, take a deep breath, understand that people have created a whole bunch of different college curriculums to teach computer science, software engineering, etc, because its a huge field, with a lot of things to learn.

Go to college, you'll feel less useless, you also need to have SMALL GOALS, which you can achieve from time to time. Why not taking on drawing lessons?

Now, as far as career goes, you do know that as a game designer on the big industry, you won't have much of a voice to actually be able to change how the gaming world is nowadays, right? Your passion seems to fit more tightly into the indie world. Also, do you want to create your own games, or you want to be a professional game designer on the big industry?

Again, I would say, have you thought about creating a career and make games as an indie?

Make some investiments in education, learning by yourself is cool, but you gotta fill the rest of the gap, formal education is important. Not strictly necessary, but important.

Also, read the www.sloperama.com FAQ on game design to understand more about it.

For the non typical answer. I want to bring some variety back into the game business. The oversaturation of FPS, and the companies bs way of screwing people out of full games, making them buy DLC make me cringe.

But working for a company that doesn't care at all what you think, won't allow you to have any effect on these things.

I continue to learn programming, I just don't know if I have the problem solving skills/smarts to be a good game programmer.

Ofcourse you don't! That's what learning is for. Nobody is born with knowledge, they grow in knowledge. Nobody is born with intelligence, they grow in intelligence ("smarts" as you put it). Yes, some people happen to be able to grow in intelligence faster than others, or grow in knowledge faster than others. You might not be one of those people (most people aren't), and neither am I. That doesn't mean you can't gain intelligence or gain knowledge, it just takes alot more work.

As I look over the past 7 years on and off of self-taught hobby programming, I see the huge amount of progress I've made. I also see the many areas where my skills aren't developed that I need to focus. I'm not a genius, my math sucks horribly, and I got really frustrated and canceled projects during many parts of my journey. But, to be slightly cheesy, as long as you don't give up entirely, you eventually succeed.

But, you're basically saying, if I am struggling now, I should probably quit while I'm ahead because it only gets worse >_>[/quote]
Yes, it gets more difficult... but your capability to handle the greater burden also increases, so the net result is it gets better... though there will be plenty of walls you hit. Whenever you hit a wall (like now), you have three choices: Walk away (failure), Climb the wall (success), Find a different way around the wall (you still eventually reach your goal, but tactically chose to avoid that one battle).

The more walls you walk away from, the further you get into a habit of failure.
The more walls you climb, the quicker you grow, and the more your ability to climb future walls increases... even if the future walls get taller and taller, your ability to climb them gets greater and greater.
When you walk around a wall, it's not failure. But do it too much, and you A) don't develop as fast as you could (we grow through overcoming challenges, not avoiding them), and B) you run the risk of eventually confusing walking around walls with running away from walls. So a good rule of thumb is, if you must walk around a wall, make sure the next wall you encounter you do everything you can to climb over instead.

You sometimes have to walk around a wall (retreat from a battle) if you bite off too much at once, and the challenge is really to great for your abilities. The difficulty is knowing when the challenge (which should be challenging) is really too great, or just seems too great.

The thing is, growth takes pain. Ask anyone who physically exercises - How do you know that your exercise is actually working? When your legs feel like lead, your lungs burn like fire, and your body already told you, "You can't possibly go any farther" but then you go another twenty percent. Many people don't know their own capabilities (cliched, but really honestly truly a fact), the problem is, since they don't know what they can accomplish, when they start to encounter real difficulty, their body screams out, "What are you doing?! You can't go farther than this!" and they listen to their body instead of their mind that actually understands the situation.

A wall that doesn't give you difficulty is a wall you won't grow from.

[hr]

What do you actually want? To work in the game industry? Or is working in the game industry a path that you think might lead you to your actual goals? What are your actual goals? What is the actual path you need to take to get there? What is your actual plan (written on paper) that describes the steps you must take to walk along that path? What is your actual daily/weekly/monthly schedule to force your unwilling body to be inconvenienced to hold yourself to your plan?

Is your goals: "Man, the game industry is really exploitive to gamers. Someone needs to do something. *sigh* I guess it must be up to me"
Or is your goal: "I'd like to create some game worlds"
Or: "I want to write character back-plot"
Or: "I want to get into marketing."
Or... what? What is your actual goal? What work (and work is work, not just play) will actually A) Give you pleasure (most of the time), B) Provide for you (at least your basic needs), C) Challenge you (you need challenge for continued growth)?

My biggest personal difficulty is self-discipline. If I don't make a plan, I won't do anything. If I do make a plan, I'll follow it for a week before I let it slip away from laziness. But that one week helps. So a month later I need to make another plan (or re-subscribe to the same plan) to motivate me for another week. It's the only way I can get myself to make progress. It's about time I create a new one - my math* book has been sitting by my bed unopened for at least 90 days.

*[size=2]Math is one of my poor areas. So I'm intent to make it one of my strong points. That's challenging to my brain, and that challenge grows my brain.

[quote name='Bill Fountaine' timestamp='1350734891' post='4992126']
For the non typical answer. I want to bring some variety back into the game business. The oversaturation of FPS, and the companies bs way of screwing people out of full games, making them buy DLC make me cringe.

But working for a company that doesn't care at all what you think, won't allow you to have any effect on these things.

I continue to learn programming, I just don't know if I have the problem solving skills/smarts to be a good game programmer.

Ofcourse you don't! That's what learning is for. Nobody is born with knowledge, they grow in knowledge. Nobody is born with intelligence, they grow in intelligence ("smarts" as you put it). Yes, some people happen to be able to grow in intelligence faster than others, or grow in knowledge faster than others. You might not be one of those people (most people aren't), and neither am I. That doesn't mean you can't gain intelligence or gain knowledge, it just takes alot more work.

As I look over the past 7 years on and off of self-taught hobby programming, I see the huge amount of progress I've made. I also see the many areas where my skills aren't developed that I need to focus. I'm not a genius, my math sucks horribly, and I got really frustrated and canceled projects during many parts of my journey. But, to be slightly cheesy, as long as you don't give up entirely, you eventually succeed.

But, you're basically saying, if I am struggling now, I should probably quit while I'm ahead because it only gets worse >_>[/quote]
Yes, it gets more difficult... but your capability to handle the greater burden also increases, so the net result is it gets better... though there will be plenty of walls you hit. Whenever you hit a wall (like now), you have three choices: Walk away (failure), Climb the wall (success), Find a different way around the wall (you still eventually reach your goal, but tactically chose to avoid that one battle).

The more walls you walk away from, the further you get into a habit of failure.
The more walls you climb, the quicker you grow, and the more your ability to climb future walls increases... even if the future walls get taller and taller, your ability to climb them gets greater and greater.
When you walk around a wall, it's not failure. But do it too much, and you A) don't develop as fast as you could (we grow through overcoming challenges, not avoiding them), and B) you run the risk of eventually confusing walking around walls with running away from walls. So a good rule of thumb is, if you must walk around a wall, make sure the next wall you encounter you do everything you can to climb over instead.

You sometimes have to walk around a wall (retreat from a battle) if you bite off too much at once, and the challenge is really to great for your abilities. The difficulty is knowing when the challenge (which should be challenging) is really too great, or just seems too great.

The thing is, growth takes pain. Ask anyone who physically exercises - How do you know that your exercise is actually working? When your legs feel like lead, your lungs burn like fire, and your body already told you, "You can't possibly go any farther" but then you go another twenty percent. Many people don't know their own capabilities (cliched, but really honestly truly a fact), the problem is, since they don't know what they can accomplish, when they start to encounter real difficulty, their body screams out, "What are you doing?! You can't go farther than this!" and they listen to their body instead of their mind that actually understands the situation.

A wall that doesn't give you difficulty is a wall you won't grow from.

[hr]

What do you actually want? To work in the game industry? Or is working in the game industry a path that you think might lead you to your actual goals? What are your actual goals? What is the actual path you need to take to get there? What is your actual plan (written on paper) that describes the steps you must take to walk along that path? What is your actual daily/weekly/monthly schedule to force your unwilling body to be inconvenienced to hold yourself to your plan?

Is your goals: "Man, the game industry is really exploitive to gamers. Someone needs to do something. *sigh* I guess it must be up to me"
Or is your goal: "I'd like to create some game worlds"
Or: "I want to write character back-plot"
Or: "I want to get into marketing."
Or... what? What is your actual goal? What work (and work is work, not just play) will actually A) Give you pleasure (most of the time), B) Provide for you (at least your basic needs), C) Challenge you (you need challenge for continued growth)?

My biggest personal difficulty is self-discipline. If I don't make a plan, I won't do anything. If I do make a plan, I'll follow it for a week before I let it slip away from laziness. But that one week helps. So a month later I need to make another plan (or re-subscribe to the same plan) to motivate me for another week. It's the only way I can get myself to make progress. It's about time I create a new one - my math* book has been sitting by my bed unopened for at least 90 days.

*[size=2]Math is one of my poor areas. So I'm intent to make it one of my strong points. That's challenging to my brain, and that challenge grows my brain.
[/quote]

Create the game worlds/characters. Creative stuff mostly, but theres thousands of those people. And they have no place in the industry. Since they are a dime a dozen.

As for the programming, I have a bad habit of not understanding something, taking like 2 weeks or so off, coming back, and it like, clicks instantly.

Programming isn't HARD, my problem solving skills just need work.

As for the programming, I have a bad habit of not understanding something, taking like 2 weeks or so off, coming back, and it like, clicks instantly.[/quote]
Instead of taking two weeks off, take two hours off and read a book or take a walk instead - you might get the same result.

Programming isn't HARD, my problem solving skills just need work.[/quote]
And that 'work' your problem solving skills need, is gotten from... working (on challenges).

[I want to] create the game worlds/characters. Creative stuff mostly, but theres thousands of those people. And they have no place in the industry. Since they are a dime a dozen.

Nope. Ideas are a dime a dozen. People that are creative, and have in-depth knowledge of certain subjects, and have great skill in certain areas, are certainly not a dime a dozen (at least, I don't think so - I'm not in the industry, I'm trying to go commercial as a indie).

How good is your historical knowledge? How well do you know ancient and modern civilizations and culture?
In what ways are you refining your craft?

If you just walk around and suddenly an idea pops into your head for a character so you scribble it down... that is a dime a dozen. ("Oh wow, what if I give him robot boots? And he can shoot fireballs!")
If you understand human interaction, and can create rich and rewarding characters because you understand how two flawed humans interact and relate to each other, that's worth far more.

Example: ('[font=times new roman,times,serif]Pride and Prejudice'[/font] [font=times new roman,times,serif]- Jane Austen[/font])
Mr Darcy: "I have fought against my better judgement, my family’s expectation, the inferiority of your birth, my rank and circumstances – all these things -but I am willing to put them aside and ask you to end my agony"
Elizabeth: "I don’t understand."
Mr Darcy: "I love you. Most ardently. Please do me the honor of accepting my hand."
(Video - it's even better)

If your world looks like JRR Tolkien's, "but different! Better! Really!"... that is a dime a dozen. ("And then the gwarf (not dwarf! But like one), swung his battle hammer around and hit the urc (not orc) on his battle helmet")
If you understand cultures, the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, the interplay of politics across the ages, and can weave a real tale of betrayal or a rise to power that isn't just a re-hashing of your favorite book with the towns named differently, then it's worth far more.

What have you done to refine your craft? What will you do in the future to refine it further?

• Do you understand history? Not just samurai and western gunfights, and not just the Roman empire. What was it like a peasant colonizing the west? What is the clothing fashions of the 1600s in France, and how did they develop?
  
• Do you understand religion? Not just the zombie-bashing "I hate it because it's popular to", but have you studied it yourself? Could you actually create priests that aren't cliched evil and manipulative or aren't gentle old men?
  
• Do you understand yourself? What really motivates you? Why you do what you don't want to, despite trying not to? Why you fail to do what you want to do despite trying desperately to achieve it?
  
• Do you understand men? Really? Is every man you create battle-scarred, or heartless, or a anti-hero, or a pretty-boy?
  
• Do you understand women? Really? Can you make decent female characters that aren't A) manipulative backstabbers, B) flirtatious or overly sexualized, C) Pure, innocent and naive, D) a tomboy, E) Stoic warriors?
  
• If I remove the cliches and the extremes, are you left helpless?
  
  Answering "No" to any of the above is nothing to be ashamed of, but an invitation to go explore and discover, and use the results of that as inspiration to develop and hone the skills you want to use to make your living.
  
  Consume knowledge in a free-floating kind of way, but also do dedicated research into subjects of interest, and ask "why" one thing is better than another. Analyze, but also practice by writing.
  
  Why is Mr Darcy's rejected proposal (above) more accurate, true-to-life, and more enjoyable than all the cutscenes of Assassin's Creed put together?
  
  You want to create the background lore of worlds, and the personalities and interactions of characters. So hone your craft. Let that be your focus. The good thing about your chosen skill, is you can actually practice it in complete isolation: Write some books as practice. Good ones.
  
  Random practice assignment: Thirty people are in an enclosed area (ballroom, plane, boat, whatever), nothing interesting happened (no murders or anything). What are the relationships between those people, how do they feel about each other, and what are their backgrounds? How did they allow past events to define their personality, how does their personalities clash or compliment each others, and how does the clashing and complimenting dictate their future interactions, and how might they successfully break free from their cyclic patterns of behavior between each other? How do their personalities dictate their clothes and hair style and etc...?
  
  Do you actually practice on a regular basis? If not, when do you plan to start?
  "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist." - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

But, you're basically saying, if I am struggling now, I should probably quit while I'm ahead because it only gets worse >_>

My interpretation of the advice is more like "measure twice, cut once", which is the same as saying "you need to develop software". This is in contrast to say... "measure no times, cut fifty times, then rip your hair out and scream while your project self-combusts and melts into a pile of slag from all the friction", or "coding".

Oh yeah, take your sketchpad into the bathroom. That way you get to spend time practicing your art, and if you're not satisfied with the results, then you can say that you wasted absolutely no time on it. Tada!

Seriously, take your current state of unhappiness with your skill as a good sign -- it means that you actually have the desire to learn and grow. That's the most important part. I dunno why you're being so hard on yourself.

Hey Bill,

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. I felt the same way, then I started going to school and felt less like that. I wasn't fancy at math so improving my programming skills took forever and I eventually gave up once.

If I were to do that again I would start with something else than C++. That should cut down on some of the aggrevation.

Bill,


Game development school is what I highly recommend to you. You can also go to school for game designer who designs the game but may do little or no programming. They will teach you how to problem solve! It could be much more enjoyable than your present method.


Clinton

Here I am

Best place to be.

21

Ouch.

unemployed

Best way to live.



First the good news.

People generally have the ability to learn more than one trade, and even to be not just good but great at them.
I myself started out as a pencil artist intent on working for Disney. http://l-spiro.deviantart.com/gallery/4844241
Then I realized that was a stupid idea because I wanted to make video games, so I learned to program and have traveled the world doing so as a career.
When I was 14 I realized I was stupid for thinking that band class was for nerds and I taught myself how to play piano. http://soundcloud.com/l-spiro My music appears in 14 games and 1 movie.
One day I decided to go into acting, so I did. I now appear regularly on Japanese TV and movies. Look for me in theaters next summer!


The good news is that in all of these cases except art, I simply wanted to, so I did.
If you want it, you will pursue it with a passion, and some day it will happen.
One day I simply decided I wanted to live/work in Japan. It took time but I never stopped pursuing that goal and for it to end up happening was nothing but “matter-of-fact” for me. There was no “if I live in Japan,” there was only “when I live in Japan.”
There was no “if I get into the game industry,” only “when I get into the game industry.”
No “if I can act on Japanese TV and movies.”
No “if I can produce a classical music CD.”
No “if I can write a book.”
These things became matter-of-factual as soon I decided I wanted to do them. That is the mentality you need.



Now for the bad news: The Case of Art
I trained hard in programming to get where I am.
I trained [s]fucking[/s] extremely hard at piano to get to the point where I could release a classical music CD.
I would like to say that is true for everything I do, and that anyone who trains can do all the same things.
Unfortunately, there is the “art” factor.
I trained…
…not a single day in my life in art.
I drew this when I was 12. Being able to draw was “just how it was” since I was born. My mother keeps a picture of a “muscle man” I drew at age 3 in which all of the muscles were correctly represented and the proportions were correct.


There are certain things certain people can just do that you will never be able to do no matter how hard you try if you don’t have the base talent for it.
That is a universal truth and it is obvious. Otherwise we could all be Beethoven or Einstein.
I’ve mentioned what I can do but we all have things we simply can’t do. I am not so hot at math in general. I can’t sing for crap, and I can’t identify musical notes just by hearing them.


You can’t fight against things where you have no talent.
My view on art is especially harsh.
You can learn techniques and rules about color, composition, etc., but to be able to actually draw well can’t be learned. It can’t be studied. It is 100% natural talent, and if you don’t have it you can’t get it. Give up on that.

As for programming, at 21 you are a little late to the party, and without problem-solving skills you are also a foot behind.
However I don’t have terribly strong math skills and have been able to work around that to get where I am.
It is possible for you to at least become “good” at programming as long as you train hard and find a way around your disability. Problem-solving is like art, and can’t be learned. Don’t fight it, just work around it.
By giving up on art, you will have more time to focus on programming.


L. Spiro

Thanks for the advice guys. I've always had a "defeatist" attitude. Which is obviously not good. Something I need to get rid of entirely.

In my humble opinion, at every step in our lives we might be digging ourselves into potential depression... But realize we also might be digging ourselves into potential happiness.