I want to get startedby introducing myself and telling a little about my limited experience in Game Dev.
My name is Larry Daniel and I am currently 29 years old. My birthday is 5-10-82 so please send presents. I enjoy most types of games from board games to computer games and everything in between. I got started in Game development back in 2000 when I was first introduced to RPGMaker 2000 by a friend of mine Steven Stapleton. We tinkered with the system in our free time but never produced anything substantial to the 'cause' and I eventually got more involved in life and left the development alone until later. In the interim years I was an avid player and kept an interest in the game design and development world but from a safe distance. I decided to get more serious about my hobby in 2006 and started seeking out a college that I could attend to teach me what it takes to become a professional. I found Westwood College Online and started attending classes in Jan 2007. I was a mediocre student and did my best to learn the material presented to me and at the same time perform a full time job and take care of my family. In May 2008 I got into some legal trouble and was incarcerated and lost my home, my job, my education and all other normalcy of life. I was released from prison in Nov. 2011 and am interested in continuing my education but I have a slight problem with the finances at this point. All of my student loans are in default status and I am homeless (living in a half-way house in Louisville, KY). I go to the library at any chance I get to read up on industry news and to study the programming books and websites that are relevant but I am restricted by the house's limited movements policy so I am doing my best.
If there is/are any materials that you know of that could assist me in my research please feel free to comment/contact me at your convenience.
Hopefully things start looking up for you. As far as learning game dev, programmer/scripting is pretty key and the good news is there's TONS of stuff online to help you teach your self, all completely free.
[url="http://unity3d.com/"]Unity 3D[/url] might be a good place to start, it tries to take as much out of programming and into their Editor program as possible, and what programmer is required can be done in Javascript which many new people find easy to pick up. And the base PC version of Unity is FREE
[url="http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/34015-Newbie-guide-to-Unity-Javascript-%28long%29"]This[/url] looks like a decent little tutorial for learning Javascript specifically for Unity 3D. Hope that helps. The forums here on GDNet are pretty helpful too.