Hi, welcome to gamedev.net

I'm 30 years old and I got my start in programming when I was 16 (using QBasic). I also wanted to make games, like Commander Keen. Way back then, I didn't have the internet, so I had to spend a lot of time doing trial and error. It was more boring than Commander Keen, so I didn't progress very quickly. Driven by my passion to program a game, I took an introductory programming class in highschool. They taught visual basic. I thought I was really good at it, but in truth, I struggled with anything more complicated than an if statement. The next class I took was C++. I *really* struggled with this class. I didn't have a very good attention to detail at the time, so I'd commonly forget a semi-colon or use an "=" in my if statements and get a hundred plus errors with confusing error messages. I did not even understand functions and how they worked for the whole semester, let alone pointers. But I did understand arrays. Man, I was dumb. C++ is very unfriendly for new programmers!

So, how did I get to where I am today? The next semester in high school, I decided to take the next programming course which was more advanced. I barely passed the previous class with a C-. There was one other kid who was as dumb as I was and he decided to retake the class instead of advancing. I knew that I'd really have to buckle down and focus extra hard on actually learning programming, starting with functions. I went home, sat down at my computer, and was determined to spend however long it took to figure out how functions worked. What were these mysterious things I was supposed to know? What is a "parameter"? What is an "output"? Why can a parameter also be an output? What's the difference between passing by reference and passing by value? I spent all day using trial and error on functions, and recorded the results and looked for patterns of consistency. I wasn't very good at it, but at the end of the day, I had actually learned functions!!! It was a major break through. I found that if I sat down and dedicated myself to figuring something out, I could do it. All of the things about programming which confused me at the time, suddenly just became a day of sitting down and figuring it out, no matter what it took. Soon enough, I was doing great in the more "advanced" programming class. It's not that I was smarter than anyone else (probably the opposite), I just had to spend more time behind the scenes figuring it out for myself. So, what's the lesson here? Learn how to study, especially when you don't *have* to do it. All of the tutorials and books you're rejecting are probably good sources of programming knowledge. You don't need a tutor, you just need to learn how to sit down and start studying. (and, what would an online tutor do? They'd just write more tutorials to guide your learning, but the problem is most likely in your ability to consume the material)

Here's another tip of advice: Video games are software. Software has to be created by programmers. Programming games is just a subset of programming software, so if you see articles on programming and decide not to read it because it has nothing to do with games, then you're wrong. If you get good at programming in general, you get good at programming games. So, read those articles on how to design your software architecture. Learn how to write code to interact with a database. Discover how those datastructures and algorithms work. These all become tools in your toolbelt which you can pull out and use on your game programming project!

Another tip: Choose C# instead of C++. It's very similar to C++ in sytax, but its a lot friendlier for first time programmers. You don't have to worry about memory management and pointers right away! Once you get good at C#, you can play around with C++ and you'll see how easy it is to shoot yourself in the foot.

Last tip: Choose super simple projects!!! start with a "Guess my number" game, and then try Tic Tac Toe, then maybe pong. Your focus is to learn how to program and to have fun at the same time by making games, but your focus shouldn't be on making games and treating programming as a necessary evil.

Final tip: practice, practice, practice. When you think you've had enough, write more code. Break new ground, learn things which are new to you. Try stuff which is challenging to you. Keep pushing the boundaries of your abilities. If you focus and work hard, you can become a legendary programmer like John Carmack, Tim Sweeny, Edsgar Dijkstra, John Von Neuman, Alan Turing, etc. To get really good at programming, its going to take years and years of time investment.