Thread: Advice for breaking into the industry

Me and my friend are both 15 (going into 10th grade now) and we want to start programming/developing games as a career. I was wondering if you had any advice that could help us learn and get into the game industry. We've already bought some good C++ primers (Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, second edition) and are doing tic-tac-toe and such and even have a book in mind called Game Programming All in One, third edition that teaches how to use Allegro to program full 2D games.

Is there anything advice you can give us?

Take as much science and math as you can in hgih school, and get into a college with a good CS program, that focuses on programming and computer engineering.

I'll add to abachler's comment.

Keep making stuff on top of that, but don't let it get in the way of homework (for any class) as you want to get into a good college. Make 2D games until you think you've got a handle on that, and then move to 3D. There's a debate as to whether you should start learning with C++ or not, but that seems to be working out for you. You're on a pretty good track, once you start programming all you really need to do is keep programming.

If you feel like reading you can visit these threads.
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?threadid=8833
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthrea...threadid=20528
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthrea...threadid=29168

A lot of that is aimed at people who want to be a game designer, but you can pick out what is relevant to you.

You're probably not going to find much in college by way of game programming in the curriculum, but many probably have gneral interest groups or clubs that have people that learn together and the like.

From what I've learned on my own of graphics programming, geometry, calculus, linear algebra, and physics are good for the fundamentals.

UCF is in orlando, one of the best schools in florida for technology.

I woudl also add, take a foreign language and several writing classes. Communication is an important aspect of any job. You will do a lot of reports as a programmer, and foriegn language gives you valuable perspective on how your own language is used, making it easier to conceptualize abstract conversations. I took 2 years of Spanish, a year of French and a semester of Russian. You probably don't need that much.

I wouldn't worry about a certain under grad program not being geared towards games specifically. Any CS program worth anything will cover the fundamentals you will need not just for games, but for any sort of program you may need to write or have to write.