Hey guys I'm a newbie here and interested in game development. A little background, I went to college for a while and learnt C++ and Java, however due to personal reasons at that time I was not able to get most out of my classes. You can say that I'm a little proficient in C++ like I know how to use loops, functions and abit of pointers. I'd like to do game development in my free time and build my portfolio at the same time. So how do I go about this?

I understand that there are many things in game dev such as cameras, math, AI and the engine. I do not know where to start. should I go back and brush up on my C++ or can I dive into something that is less intensive and learn and build from there? I'm currently reading the book by Jason Gregory of Naughty Dog, Game engine architecture. I'm pretty sure most of the technical stuff would fly over my head but the concepts are very interesting. One of my goals would be to build an engine in the far future.

Can you guys fill me in on what to do and how to approach this?

Khairul 

From personal experience, I've:
. picked a gaming engine
. come up with a very simple game idea
. practised my coding on building said simple game
. repeat with each new game idea, but increase the complexity

The idea of building my own game engine does not appeal to me. I want to make games, not game engines. I'd rather be thinking about game design, than engine design.

That's just me.

I'm pretty sure my answer will be the worst given (and I am really in no position to give one since I am in your same boat ), but my take on it would be: make it in such a way that you can answer every other question you see asked in this forum.
If you achieve that, you probably became a gamedev somewhere along the way.

If you can't, then at least you know what you still need to learn, and that's all you need to get going and be walking on the right path 

Basically use this forum as a benchmark for your knowledge  (and that's my long term goal)

Also to answer in a more "short term" kind of way, since you asked where to start, my answer would be here -> 

This is the same playlist I started with, those 48 video will definetly brush up your C++ good enough and will get you ready to move to some 2D graphic API, and is called "making games with ben" so should be appropriate (you get to do some simple and nice windows console practice games along the way) 

And then you think to the next step when the time comes.

Thanks for the answers guys I think I know how to go about it now.

paultrott what games have you done so far?

MarcusAseth how new are you in this?

45 minutes ago, Khairul90 said:

MarcusAseth how new are you in this?

I can't tell, I am not in the habit of tracking time

I didn't do anything so far, only learned some c++ and in the process of learning D3D/D2D, all I can do for now amounts to this and is not even a game, so still pretty low

@Khairul90 :

In general, you start by picking a programming language, and it doesn't really matter much which one. If you already know one or more, it's useful to continue with these, as it reduces the amount of learning you have to do.

For you, that would amount to either Java or C++, where the latter has a far steeper learning curve than the former. Java is similar to C#, so that simplifies the road to Unity game engine. C++ is used by Unreal engine. In theory, C++ can lead to faster code, in practice at your expertise level, you won't get any of it, lots of learning to do first.

Making a game engine yourself is a popular hobby here. For educational purposes that's fine, for making real games, you're much better off using Unity or Unreal, you can't beat those within your lifetime.

To make a game engine, you first need to know the structure of a general game, so I'd recommend making a few first.

is the general starting point, it points out some things, and has a list suggested games (in increasing difficulty) you may want to try to make.