i am in highschool and am thinking of going into the video game industry as a career. i want to be a programer/designer. i have no clue how anything works tho, i would like to know some software i can bbuy to get started, software that will show me how to do stuff, also some books. someone please post some things i should buy.

Well, if you just want to make simple games, there is this (or this for RPGS).

If you want to eventually become a programmer, you'll need to learn to program computers of course [grin]!

It's very important to pick a programming language that's good for you. The most commonly used programming language for big game companies is C++. C++, however, is very tough to learn, and there are other languages that will teach you to program, that are also widely used.

I recommend python. It's an easy programming language to learn, it's very powerful, it is very well documented (check out the tutorial on that site), it's good for making games, and it is used by some software engineers.


There are tons of other languages. I recommend using Wikipedia and google to find out more.

You picked a good website to start out on. The forums are very well populated, with people of all ages (I'm in highschool too). In the future, when you're just starting out, I recommend using the "For Beginners" forum to help with basic stuff, just because it's mandated by the mods to be very friendly.


Good luck!

As a first C-family language (mainstream, if you like), I'd recommend C# – it's more planned out and self-consistent than C++, and it's harder to write bad code, so it will help instil good habits if you want to learn C++ one day. (Java, the alternative, is overly protective imho and isn't so nice to use, also imho naturally.)

I think everyone should learn a 'non-standard' language – Perl, Python, APL, Ruby etc – at some point; it gives you different ways of thinking about problems, and the more ways you know how to crack a nut the better. Which one you take on first is entirely your choice.