What I always wanted to be is to do what I like to do best. After finished my O-level course and the CIE examination, I had a whole 3-4 months holiday. I got nothing to do except for waiting for my O-level result (2012), and playing computer games all day.

One day I found out this game called 'To The Moon', developed by Freebird. The game was awesome, yet simple (kind of), as if its not made by a huge company, but rather some small group of people. I began to google this game. I wanted to find out who is the director of this game, how it was made, is it famous ( and I'm not surprised it got a lot of endorsement ), etc. But what I was really interested is, how did they make this game?

After a bit of googling, I found out that they used this program called 'RPG maker' to make their game. Interested as I was, I visited 'RPG maker' website and surf through their sites. I thought, "So this is how most people make games. ". I didn't know anything about programming back then, let alone knowing that 'computer programming language' exists, and nor do I have any interest in anything computer-related. Another few surf, I stumbled upon the word "Now with codes... (some programming language)" or something like that.

So again, I search about programming language. In turns out that the very basic thing in game-developing is coding the game. So, given that I have 3-4 long months of holidays, I decided to give it a try, and start learning C++ from various tutorial sites and youtube videos , and forums.

I spent day and night everyday, reading and watching tutorials online, and making some random useless programs to practice what I've learned.

If I had an error that I couldn't solve, I sometimes couldn't sleep at night until I finally find a solution. Its really decided that this is what I really like to do best. If I can choose any career, I'd want to be a game programmer.

However, there are some problem that 'push' me away from nearing that career:

Firstly, in my country, there's no game industry at all. Most programmers in my country work for non-game industry, like working for an oil and gas industry. So, I can say that the number of demand of game programmer in my country is likely to be 0.

Secondly, I don't have any background on programming, ICT, or computer studies under my school courses. I only found out about programming, and start learning last year's December (2012).

Thirdly, I afraid I don't have time to spend on game programming. Now that I'm a student taking A-level course for Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, I have too much work to do in my hand, and these three subjects aren't easy to score. To add one more 'subject' (i.e programming) in my free time will probably drop my academic performance.

Sorry if my English is bad. That's all what I wanted to share. What your say in this?

Programing is obviously a very big part of game development, but there are many other aspects as well, such as artwork, level design, gameplay design, or testing. It still does help to have a basic understanding of programming even for those roles though, but it doesn't need to be in-depth knowledge.

Not having much of an industry where you are is a much bigger problem however, and one that is hard to overcome without actually relocating. You could try joining projects with people online, but without any experience they're less likely to take you on than people who do have experience.

You could try making some games with tools like gamemaker, to help showcase that talents you do have. A finished basic game is a lot better than nothing.

Good luck.

I assume your in the British school system but not in Britain. Will you be trying to go to university?

I hear you man. Life makes us make hard choices sometimes. I can only offer my own anecdotes to show that I understand.

When I was ten, I programmed my first IF-THEN game in BASIC on a Commodore 64. (based on the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books popular at the time).

But when I went to college, I majored in Accounting because it was "sensible" and my family approved of that idea. (Should have gone CompSci.)

Life happens (I'm in I.T. now, not accounting) and I'm too busy or distracted to seriously chase my dream.

I'm turning 40 this year. Making games is just a hobby now. Someday I'll make something of it...

As for location, I can safely say that there are ZERO major players in the game industry working in Kentucky, U.S.A.

There are a few indies that are successful here, but they are 1-3 man mobile app teams. They don't need me.

So since I'm not moving to a coastline, I'm going to try to start a major company here in Kentucky. (Long Term Goal, right? I'm still a nobody for now.)

Perhaps you can start the industry where you are. Surely there are others in your part of the world that want to make games too, right?

If not, there is certainly a global community to seek partnership and experience. That's why I'm here on this site.

I do not recommend you neglect your studies to pursue your dreams.

But there will come a very specific moment in your life where you will intentionally make the life-changing decision on which career you will pursue.

For me, it was when I declared my major in college. (University, post-secondary education, whatever it's called now.)

When that moment comes, I do recommend that you follow your dreams, not what is "sensible". You'll be happier for it.

But I'm just a guy on the internet. Don't take my advice blindly. You have to do what you think is the right thing to do.

Meerul,

The question for those of us trying to advise you is that we don't know which kind of game programmer you want to be.

a. Independent programmer/developer

or

b. Game programmer working at a game company

If (a), then you need to study business and marketing as well as programming, and familiarize yourself with the regulations governing businesses in your country.

If (b), then you should get a CS degree and check gamedevmap and gameindustrymap to see if there really are no game companies in your country. You might need to move.

And that's just for starters. Once we know which of those you plan to pursue, more meaningful advice can be added, if you ask.

Game development is something that can take years of experience. It took me a whole year to learn how to set up directx and opengl from scratch. However, you can always start out small and start with unity or ogre, I actually started with flash and gamemaker.

That sounds pretty manageable, provided that you have realistic expectations.

1. I take it you are in the equivalent of an American high school, the level immediately below university. Plenty of people pursue new topics in college all the time, and you could certainly start with intro programming and related intro courses if necessary. You don't need to do anything now to upend your schooling plans.

2. Very, very few people are successful in game development with just a secondary school education in programming and related topics. You aren't locking yourself out of anything if you wait for university or learn as a hobbyist and make slower progress than you might prefer.

3. Even with a heavy course load you can still learn the basics of a programming language and learn foundation-level software development skills. As long as you keep a schedule which allows you to focus on your courses, I don't see any reason you couldn't also work on games in your spare time (even if that's just an hour or two per week). Your progress won't be fast, but you won't have the pressure that taking programming classes would force onto you.

A lot of good answers so far. To learn basic programming, AND basic design at the same time, I would recommend studying JavaScript / HTML5 since that is a fairly easy language to use plus you can easily showcase your work.

HERE is a free online "school" to get you started. HERE is a more advanced free course.

You said that all the industry in your company is gas and oil but, these industries hire a large number of computer science grads. Why not study Computer Science at degree so that you can write games to help you learn and also if you can't make it into games because of a lack of demand then you still have an in demand skill. Also once you graduate then there is nothing stopping you moving to a country where there is more of a demand.

Then why don't you get a background? When I first started using the internet (I used to always think it was to be a waste of my money, but then I got cable and was proved wrong), I found pictures of these renderings made by ray tracing in various CAD applications, and from then on I set my goal on making a rudimentary CAD program to make my own renderings like that. I never did really make any progress on learning programming, I just always kept the interest. A year or two later, I became interested in making a computer game. I decided to awaken myself at 4 AM everyday to read a C++ book before working for the day. It has been years after that now, and I am making both my CAD-like application and my computer game, and they are both written in C (although I might actually start thinking about transitioning the project to C++). And it doesn't have to take that long. I had many distractions, and I often quit at different intervals only to start back up again on the project.