Game Programming

[football52]

Im juat getting into the c++ language but I want to be a game programmer later down the road. I was just wondering what I need to know to make a game? Just a small easy game. Ive dont small board games light tic tac toe and suduko but what do I need to know to actually build games with actual characters

[Hippogriff]

Guessing you did tic tac toe/suduko all in the console.

There are 2 main ways of getting started, learning an API like SDL/SFML/Allegro where you learn how to build everything yourself from the ground up (I recommend this way and it's how I started). The other way is to get started with a game engine (Unity, Unreal, etc) and build everything on top of that.

If you just want to start on simple 2D games with a few movable objects I would download one of the APIs I mentioned and watch/read as many tutorials as you can.

[MatthewRock]

Well, to store character we use char in C++. ;)

Jokes aside - everything you can learn may be useful. If you made it through basics of C++ - many tutorials end beginnings of C++ with polymorphism - you can start making games. If you don't know how to do something - then try to do it simplest way, and improve later. You may write your game a few times before you make it right, and then rewrite it again because you discovered it didn't fit your needs - but hey, it works this way. You can't learn without making - both games and mistakes. Remember - FEZ, really good game, was completly rewritten three times - and these guys weren't complete beginners.

I can give you some links that I gathered, related to gamedev. You may find them useful, you may not - but I hope that they'll help you.

Take a look at:
http://www.gamasutra.com/
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html
http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/index.html
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/854/what-are-good-games-to-earn-your-wings-with/1047#1047
http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/c-plus-plus-complete/intro-to-game-dev
http://www.sloperama.com/
http://www.holub.com/goodies/rules.html

These are either some pages that you may use as reference(sloper, game*patterns), some useful info, or generally useful sites.

Also, if you wish, after completing 3DBuzz's tutorial and experimenting a bit(or not finishing it, since it requires Windows - I'm running Linux), you may check this out:
http://codeumbra.eu/complete-roguelike-tutorial-using-c-and-libtcod-extra-1-about-editors-and-ide
That's nice tutorial, but it's using even nicer library for rougelikes.

Cheers!

PS. I agree with James. It doesn't matter if you use SDL or SFML, these two are most popular; I prefer SDL myself, but it's up to you.

[BHX]

@MatthewRock
You should consider adding http://www.gamedev.net (seeing as you linked sloperama and he is one of the moderators there). I agree with the rest of the links though. I also agree with James. Just don't let fantasy out do reality like so many others have in the past. If you become a success, it is pure luck because too many do fail. The key thing to remember is to just have fun while learning and making your programs.

[football52]

I had fun learning how to make a hello world program lol. Ive gone through many tutorials and many of times ive watched different tutorials on the same stuff just to learn it at a different perspective. I do plan to make this my career Im actually ib my first year of college now going for a buisness degree and just realized a few weeks ago that Im going to switch degrees to computer science because I found myself activley wanting to learn how to program rather that all my other boring classes Ive been taking. Ill sit at home and teach myself how to program.