[font="Courier New"]Hello. I have nearly completed the tutorials on the page (link below):
http://www.thenewboston.com/?cat=66&pOpen=tutorial

I was hoping to get into game development (by myself to start with, then at some point with a few friends) and was wondering if anyone knows a good place to start learning the more high-level programming concept (than just basic c++) that will lead onto game development (preferably one that covers advanced as well as simple, as in a few years I would hope to be able to create games with graphics to the same sort of level as black and white 2)?(Link to image below):[/font]

[font="Courier New"]http://i1-news.softp...2_006-large.jpg

Also (preferably, but not necessarily), I am looking for one that isn't platform specific and do not want to spend money on tools where free alternatives are available.

Thanks![/font]

Wooow. Stop, You don't jump into Game development and create a super awesome 3D game of your dream.
That's not the way you do it. As a beginner you have to focus only on learning
and... Learning.
I said that twice cause your primary goal is to only learn. Thinking about making an super awesome 3D game and forgetting about the Indie games will result in a Bunch of unused Junk code. So keep learning until you think you are ready for everything.
Since you choose C++ as your path to game development, And based on all the requirements you asked, I would suggest SDL as your API, SDL is a cross platform which supports various platforms, It's free, It's cool and it is used to render 2D graphics.
You first start with 2D graphics not 3D. Your goal must be to learn only.
Next after you learn all the basics, Make few games. Don't forget all the indie games.
Make a Tetris or a pong clone as your first game to get your feet wet, Next you can make a Breakout or Pacman, They involve the concepts of gameprogramming and will help you a lot. Pacman involves AI which is a important part of game development.
You slowly learn everything and once you think you are ready for 3D.
Come back to this forum again.

Well, before you go worrying about graphics and all that fun stuff, I'd recommend doing what a few of us are doing and create a text-only game of some sort.


Class design and putting into practice the things you learned from that tutorial would be first I would think. You can download Visual C++ Express for free from Microsoft, and that is the only real tool you need to get started. The Microsoft coding4fun website has some excellent 2d and 3d game tutorials as well. Good luck!

Wooow. Stop, You don't jump into Game development and create a super awesome 3D game of your dream.
That's not the way you do it. As a beginner you have to focus only on learning
and... Learning.
I said that twice cause your primary goal is to only learn. Thinking about making an super awesome 3D game and forgetting about the Indie games will result in a Bunch of unused Junk code. So keep learning until you think you are ready for everything.
Since you choose C++ as your path to game development, And based on all the requirements you asked, I would suggest SDL as your API, SDL is a cross platform which supports various platforms, It's free, It's cool and it is used to render 2D graphics.
You first start with 2D graphics not 3D. Your goal must be to learn only.
Next after you learn all the basics, Make few games. Don't forget all the indie games.
Make a Tetris or a pong clone as your first game to get your feet wet, Next you can make a Breakout or Pacman, They involve the concepts of gameprogramming and will help you a lot. Pacman involves AI which is a important part of game development.
You slowly learn everything and once you think you are ready for 3D.
Come back to this forum again.

Sorry... I am aware that I'll need to learn ALOT before I can even get close to graphics, I get a bit ahead of myself as am tired because of drunks over the road last night.

Thanks for the advice also.

EDIT:
Sorry for the late reply, But for SDL tutorials,
You can buy good books for SDL from your local book store or you can check Lazyfoo.net website for a good grasp about SDL.
Have fun Game devv'ing

Consider another language: C++ is a poor starting point. Try Python.

Thanks all for answers!