I'm always interested in learning others' stories. How and why did you start learning game development?

Mine:

Like most of us, I grew up playing games. My earliest memories are playing games I can't even remember the names of on Atari, Donkey Kong on Colecovision, and I remember when I received a Nintendo along with Legend of Zelda, SMB, 10 Yard Fight, and Top Gun. My imagination would run wild during my days at school, so I started doodling levels and maps for different games. I'd draw my favorite characters, like Link and Mario (if I had the motivation I'd dig up the Mario coloring book I made when I was a kid and show it), then come home and play more games. I did a lot of other things as a kid, but any "down time" was playing games.

Then I learned that you could do that for a living, and around that time I also got some exposure to computers. Some in my family came across a Commodore Plus 4 at a garage sale, and while they didn't know what I could do with it (if anything), they left it up to me to figure that out. In the manuals was a BASIC programming guide. And that's when I learned how to make games.

"Flip a coin" was the first. Don't discount that simple BASIC code. In fact one should never discount anything based on its scope. The act of making that interactive, RNG, text-based game opened the mind to all kinds of possibilities. More simple games followed - and then I learned how to render lines on the Commodore and my focus turned to graphics.

As I learned more about programming, my ambitions expanded, and I shifted into a pattern of learning more about game development by trying to replicate gameplay from games I loved to play. I jumped interest in BBS games and started writing a clone of BRE and SRE in Turbo Pascal. I did a TradeWars 2002 clone and a few other ideas I'd play with, like multiplayer games over a serial connection between two PCs (had to write the serial driver).

I loved to play Warcraft, and one of my first C/C++ language uses was to make a text-based/ASCII turn-based, two-player Warcraft clone.

Somewhere along the way I came across mode 13h. I spent many nights learning 3D graphics and rendering spinning boxes.

Various other game projects came and went. I loved to read others' source code and learn how they approached many of the same problems I've faced. These days I can easily spend hours on Github.

GameDev.net spawned out of a love for all the above and a desire to make it easier for people to learn and connect with others about game development - and nearly 20 years later (in June 2019!) all the above is still fuel for the fire.

Eventually, I got a job in the simulation training industry - basically serious games interfaced with real equipment for training purposes. I worked on various products for a few years until we made the decision to upgrade our technology. Unity was brand new and barely functional, and UE2 lacked the necessary features, so as Technical Director I architected and led a team to develop an internally used game engine and toolset (entity-component) based on ~40 commercial/open source packages but with many of the same content creation capabilities in modern engines, including things like blueprints. The goal was to build a simulation and training curriculum without having to write a line of code, and we came very close to achieving that in most cases. Production went from ~12 months to ~3-4 months. Big win for the company and a total cultural change.

Now I'm in semiconductors with a team working on developer tools, and we work with a lot of developers around the industry. Depending on what you do, it's possible you use my team's products. My game making days are pretty minimal, but I always have the urge and a list of games I'd like to work on. But making sure everyone here has a game development community through GameDev.net tends to take most of my free time.  

[EDIT: I should clarify why I didn't go into games. It basically came down to a certain type of work-life-pay-location balance that I wanted to have at the time I started my career, so instead of going into the industry I decided to do the next best thing and work where I got to work on the same type of technology, but the end product was different. I've thought about going more directly into games in more recent times, but I'm at a much different stage of my career now (engineering director-type) so it would have to be the right fit.]

Having said that, it's motivating to see what everyone is doing, and I appreciate seeing how the industry has evolved since those early Commodore days.

So, what's your story?

You make me wish I started earlier in my life.

Well, for me, it's a long bumpy road.. I grew up around Nintendo super Mario, but it never impressed me. I was mostly disinterested in video games, up until Doom. I realized that video games can invoke a lot of emotions. They were art. From there, I experienced Wolfenstein 3D, Out of this World(Another world,) Blackthorne, Bioforge, Little Big Adventure... the list goes on, and on. They inspired me in many ways, and left a significant impact in my life. As well, being dyslexic, a few of these games allowed me to push myself to read, and when voice acting was involved, allowed me to follow along. Video games have always been a special place in my life due to this.

So, this sparked my interest in developing video games as I wanted to bring that love that I have to someone else. To keep the inspiration train going, so to speak. Unfortunately, plagued with depression and self-confidence issues, I felt I was too dumb to make a game, and never pursued until I was 18. Found out that I really could not code, wasn't a great artist, or anything... Around the time I joined GameDev.Net. I stayed in the community while floundering from C++, to C#, to python, to C# again, but then gave up on programming.

I had hoped to thrive as a writer though. I ended up actually working with someone from IRC #GameDev developing Deadly Dungeons for the android. Seemed to be a modest success. Then a few failed projects after that. I found more frustrations than enjoyment, unfortunately. So I moved on from the game dev, and just kind of did art for a while.

Yet, video games keep calling me back. I decided to take up learning Japanese as one of my means to step outside of my mental imposed "I cannot do this because of x" toxic thinking. So, despite my dyslexia, I said I was going to learn japanese and translate this video game. The video game was XZR II(exile.) Took me 4 years, but I translated it, and did a let's play on it. Then moved on to translating the first game of the series (which is still incomplete.) However, I realized I needed a marketable skill. Translating was not teaching me japanese well, and I could not justify the time spending on it. Yet, I wanted to keep doing something game related.

Three years ago, I got a job at a financial office. They had programming learning courses in the skillsoft website, and would look at those during slow periods. Suddenly, it all clicked. Programming made sense. Took me 10 years, but it clicked. I picked up python, and wrote a program that simulated grocery shopping, but the computer shopped for the items you told it to collect. I wrote this in a month. That concreted my path at the moment.

From there, I made Tic-tac-toe in C# console, pong in Unity, Snake in monogames, and now extending on snake in C#\Monogames. Confirming that I can do this, maybe not as well as others, but that I can. Currently set up to go to college for computer science. Also, I am currently debating learning project management skills, and forming a team to make games I would otherwise not be able to. Time will tell though. 

16 minutes ago, neveza said:

From there, I made Tic-tac-toe in C# console, pong in Unity, Snake in monogames, and now extending on snake in C#\Monogames. Confirming that I can do this, maybe not as well as others, but that I can.

This is what it's all about. Don't worry about what others are doing. Learn for yourself. So kudos to you, even if you did start late.

And thank you for reminding me about Wolf3D, Doom, and Quake. I skipped those years, but between my Mode 13h days and the 3D game revolution there was quite a bit of influence. Those influences eventually led to me writing OpenGL Game Programming and Beginning OpenGL Game Programming with @Myopic Rhino.

41 minutes ago, khawk said:

My imagination would run wild during my days at school,

Oh man, I hear you.

It was Christmas of 87 and I received a Sega Master System.  It came with Hang-on / Safari hunt.  needless to say I was a pretty popular 9 year old until everyone started getting an NES.  Before Video games it would have been Lego.  I'd be in school and all I could think about was getting home to play Chop-lifter.  I'm glad I had a much older brother because he bought cool games.  The first game's I suppose I made where mazes I'd draw on pieces of paper during class.  I'd pass them around to friends.  They were inspired by plat former games.

Then in 91 I took my first programming class in Junior High.  My buddies and I would program text adventure games.  Thing was we never had any tape drives or spare floppy disks so all our work was just for that one session of programming.  We'd each try each-others adventures, kill our selves laughing at all the juvenile and completely inappropriate content and then move on with our day.  I suppose looking back on that it was about the love of coding and making something all our own, even if it was about to get wiped as soon as the computer was turned off.

I remember when I discovered the randomiser function in BASIC, the possibilities just blew my mind.  I started to program all sorts of gambling games.  Nothing to complicated though, kinda like 'flip the coin' like @khawk mentioned.  Then I discovered Sim-City and that was a game changer for me, no pun intended.  I spent hours playing that game and it too was all I'd think about in school.  Did I mention I performed horribly in school, because I did, just terrible.

But alas I get bored of things too fast, even uni.  So I usually tend to stick to physical jobs as they exhaust me in a good way.  I could not imagine sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day to earn my paychecks.  I'd go Bananas.  And now I program as an artistic hobby.  I've always made little games, always will I think.  Just my ambitions have gotten bigger.

22 minutes ago, khawk said:

How and why did you start learning game development?

My story started over 18 years ago (been programming for 18 years, but was using tools before that). I've always loved playing games, and when I could find a game that allowed any form of modification I would be stuck in that program for hours re-creating levels. I still remember all the different scenarios I would make in games like Age of Empires 2, StarCraft, WarCraft 3, C&C, Red Alert and Tiberian Sun mods, ect... while learning to program on the side. 

I was playing a game called: DBQuest which was released in 1993 from Futuristic Idea Studios, I played it a few years later though.

It was the only commercial game made using the Graphics Adventure Game Builder that I know of. I spent a lot of time toying around with this engine, world builder, and editors, and I believe this engine was released in 1991 from the readme files I still have. From this point on I really wanted to learn how to make games with my own tools.

My journey started with BASIC as an entry into programming, I did toy around with DarkBASIC back in the early 2000's, but I soon went straight into C++ because I wanted more power and versatility. I also toyed around in GameMaker 3 (2001) back when Mark Overmars was the sole owner. I had such a strong desire to make everything myself from the ground up, which left me very passionate about creating my own engines, world builders, and tools.

Since then I've expanded into knowing well over 7 languages, and being well versed in web development (client and server side). I've made a lot of 2D engines, and internal tools that I've used for client projects, and my own little projects.

Most of my time has been spent on low-level programming (engines), and tool development. I'm spending more time on actual game programming now a days.  

I've also spent just as much time with sound engineering work, and spent a lot of on and off time in graphics. (my 3D skills are lacking but I'm working on this now), but I don't use these skills sets in my professional work.

 DBQuest was were it all started from, and I'm glad I was so passionate to make my own games after using the engine and tools used to make that game.

I think it would have been the summer of 1975 or 1976, my grandfather taught me cribbage and pinochle.  I was 7.  I haven't spent much time not playing games since then.  I am usually playing a game of some kind at any given moment, I'm not really normal when it comes to games.  The next summer he recognized how quickly I had advanced with games so that summer he taught me how and why Backgammon was not really a game, it was an abacus because no matter what you roll there is always only one best move, so there is never really any decision to make over the course of an entire game of backgammon.  It's a more advanced version of the tic-tac-toe lesson.  Tic-tac-toe always ends in a tie, backgammon doesn't actually have any decision making in it other than the doubling cube... which is why it has the doubling cube.

My grandfather had a pretty advanced understanding of games and simulations.

16 hours ago, Rutin said:

My journey started with BASIC as an entry into programming, I did toy around with DarkBASIC back in the early 2000's, but I soon went straight into C++ because I wanted more power and versatility. I also toyed around in GameMaker 3 (2001) back when Mark Overmars was the sole owner. I had such a strong desire to make everything myself from the ground up, which left me very passionate about creating my own engines, world builders, and tools.

Ah yes, DarkBASIC, that was my starting point too for programming. I dropped it pretty quickly though once Unity became free.

Well like many I absolutely loved and still love gaming. I'm a lot younger than most on here, so my experiences are pretty different.

This story starts when I was 10/11 years old. My mom, a professor in an IT related field, saw my interest and saw this software known as Alice, though back then it was still Alice 2. To an 10/11 year old kid who was interested in how games are made, this was the most amazing thing ever. Dragging and dropping commands to manipulate a 3d world was amazing. I made several small games with it, but soon reached the limits of its capability.

So in middle school, I moved on to try learning programming. I learned a language known as DarkBASIC, and tried building stuff with it. I didn't get far (DarkBASIC just isn't that great honestly), and moved on to learning Java, etc. At that time, Unity was made free, so I built several small world explorer type things. I learned some very basic modeling with a software known as 3D Canvas.

Now this is where my story diverges a bit from others here: I started to lose interest in pure game dev and became interested in things like AI and machine learning, ultimately prompting me to pursue a degree in Computer Science. Game dev would sit on the back burner for some time. 

The past two years did see a bit of a revival in a very related field: 3d art. In particular, I became much more interested in just pure 3d art. So nowadays I spend more time on these sorts of things:

(The above is a work in progress btw)

I've attached some other pieces, of which the last two are 1 day mini pieces.

But this is what I do on the side. My job now is in software development, about 1 year out of college. I'm still figuring out career directions (which include graphics, machine learning/AI, or something entirely different), so let's see where I go. I've toyed with several game ideas and still use Unity for making cinematics, but I haven't actually worked on a game as of yet. Maybe I will once more potentially. 

Still a huge gamer of course!

Very cool @deltaKshatriya  

Well I was 6 years on, back in 198t. Then I wrote other games and taught myself how to program with a pen, paper and math grid paper. I was in Africa no access to a computer, just a  library card that gave me access to computer magazine and monthly Radio Shack manuals.  Eventually through the efforts of an expatriate British English teacher I got my hands on a ZX spectrum, eventually a BBC microcomputer, AMIGA,Archimedes. I released a sprite editor, and a paint program on shareware back in the late 80's on Atari ST. Been doing this as a hobby for years I refuse to be in the industry, and instead been working on network engineering stuff. Currently working with NVDIA developers and CISCO developers  and 3rd party company on firmware, firmware and opengl drivers fixing issues with remote graphics on platforms using HP RGS, UGE Openlava on an NVIDIA Grid k2 cards on ciscoc240+ servers.

On 4/16/2018 at 4:28 PM, khawk said:

if I had the motivation

Sounds as though you need to hurry up and get motivated.

On 4/16/2018 at 4:28 PM, khawk said:

and while they didn't know what I could do with it (if anything), they left it up to me to figure that out. In the manuals was a BASIC programming guide. And that's when I learned how to make games.

Parenting done right.  It’s always destructive to a child’s development for a parent to decide what is “too much” for a kid or to decide when a kid is “ready” for certain things.  Young people are knowledge sponges.  Drop all the computers, math, science, etc., at their feet and let them decide when and what is enough.  You never hear success stories that begin with, “Well, my parents didn’t let me start until I was older.”


L. Spiro