Hi, I've always been fascinated by the concept of video games. I'm 15 years old in High School. I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to get into the video game development field. I want to be a programmer and to make my own/ help make games.

Here's my history with video games.

The first time I played a video game was when I was 6 and I my family had a playstation 2. The first video game I ever played was Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit. After that I basically fell in love with video games.

When I was 7 my dad bought me and xbox and the first game I got for that was Star Wars Battlefront 2. After that I accmulated over 40 games for the xbox over the course of 4 years. Then I got an xbox 360 with Xbox Live and started playing games like Midnight Club L.A., Bad Company 2. Then i started playing Halo 3 with my friends and that basically hooked me on shooters. Currently I play Battlefield 3 and Halo 4.

Also when I was 8 I signed up for Roblox which is a world creator/ game designer for kids. It uses Lua scripting and I never dabbled into the scripting side of it because I was a bit too young to understand it all too well.

But, as I said I knew game development was for me.

I downloaded Visual Studio 2012. Currently I'm watching tutorials and reading online resources for C#.

I chose C# because from my knowledge it was easier to learn than C++. Also i chose something a bit simpler because from what I gathered online and from these forums. Once you learn one programming language you can basically learn them all because most of them use the same basic things.

like ints, strings, console commands, loops, breaks etc.

I just started learning C# yesterday so i have a long way to go.

But, right now while I'm learning I'm also going to make a simple console text-based game. Basically a choose your own adventure game that has 2 choices for each scenario and you choose those two choices by press either "1" or "2" on the keyboard respectively.

I'm also very good at using GIMP. but, I haven't used it for textures yet.

I'm also learning how to use blender to make models and assets for 3D games.

But, with all this I'm sort of lost. I need a bit of guidance. What should I focus on the most and why? What resources should I use to help me learn C# and game programming in general?

Also from what I under stand it can take up to 5 months to a year to learn a programming language. Is there a concrete time frame for learning a programming language?

thanks

On the Blender side, read this ( http://www.gamefromscratch.com/www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Complete-Blender-Game-Art-Tutorial-From-zero-experience-to-2D-or-3D-game-ready-asset.aspx ). It's a tutorial series I just finished that takes you from zero knowledge to making 2D or 3D game art. If that sounds too good to be true, don't worry, it isn't... There is a price. The tutorial is 21 parts long!


The programming side is a bit trickier. We all learn at different paces, but 5 months with no prior programming experience is entering Rain Man territory. A more realistic number, where you have the skill to make a technically sophisticated game is more like 2 to 3 years. You can speed that up a bit by relying on a 3rd party engine and working in higher level languages.

Your suggested progression sounds good though. Start small, finish projects and build on your successes. That's the ideal way to learn.

thank you for the advice! I know I have a long way to go. hopefully after a year and a half I can make a simple game using XNA or Unity. but more now I have to experiment. that's basically what coding comes down to I assume.. experimenting and seeing what works. :)

It took me a little more than year to start writing basic graphical games in C++

Sounds like you are on the right track. Just make sure to start with simple stuff.

Make a Pong game, maybe a Mario clone. Don't start out trying to make the next MMO.

C# is a good language to know, and if you get good at it you can easily jump to other languages.

Unity is a very powerful tool, and relatively easy to use. It also uses C# so that's a plus.

Definitely read up on programming first, because you want to know the basics before trying to make a game.

Hope that helps.

Sounds like you are on the right track. Just make sure to start with simple stuff.

Make a Pong game, maybe a Mario clone. Don't start out trying to make the next MMO.

C# is a good language to know, and if you get good at it you can easily jump to other languages.

Unity is a very powerful tool, and relatively easy to use. It also uses C# so that's a plus.

Definitely read up on programming first, because you want to know the basics before trying to make a game.

Hope that helps.

Yeah MMOs take a while to develop. It can take up to half a decade even for big time studios some times. Thanks for the advice!

Right now I'm reading some online C# books and references and looking at beginner's tutorials and such on Youtube.

I actually also made a google doc and stuffed it full of C#/ and coding things. I wrote down what an Int was, what a string was how to get simple player input in a console application. easier ways to do math functions while still getting the same result. I'm always updating that google doc when I learn more things about programming and C#

Does your school have programming classes?

If you learn a lot about code this year, you may be able to get into a higher level class next year, expand your learning, and meet some fellow "coder kids" that can help you along your journey.

Does your school have programming classes?
If you learn a lot about code this year, you may be able to get into a higher level class next year, expand your learning, and meet some fellow "coder kids" that can help you along your journey.

I'm not too certain that it does but, I'll look into it

Started working on my choose your own adventure text game in a Consoleapp.

I thought it would be difficult but it's really just a lot of

Console.WriteLine("text";

Console.WriteLine("more text");

Console.WriteLine(" ");

a bunch of If statements like

If firstchoice = 1

a lot of user input and such.

It's not hard but, it's easy to get confused if you don't know what you're doing. I'm making a choose your own adventure text game so i can make sure I got most of what I learned down then I can move on to maybe a pong replica or something in XNA or something but. I still have a lot to learn.

Isn't C# one of the supported languages for the Unity engine? I am not sure what your goal is, but if it is simply creating a game then you could continue learning C# and leverage Unity's engine using that language to create a game. Finding a project you are passionate about I think is very important to motivation. I never follow through on projects which are purely stepping stones, I learn better working on a project that may seem out of reach but taking the time to learn each step in detail along the way. Takes longer but feels good completing a project which is all yours.