Practice makes perfect, 3-4 months is no time at all.
Just take small steps, try to do this:

1) Make an application that displays a rectangle on the screen.
2) Make an application that displays a rectangle on the screen and allows the user to move the rectangle using the arrow keys.
3) Congratulations, you got the basics of a game going, continue to add functionality and you'll have pong, breakout, or something.

3-4 months is nothing imo. You still got a good chunk of whaever language ur learning to go before u get the basics down. Ive been programming for 8 motnhs now, 7 of them were learning the basics of the language (classes, ojects, inheritance, polymorphism, templates, etc etc). I just got the basics of SDL down and im doing data structures right now along side with it. Just keep at it, youve got to be persistant and not give up.

I have a hard time putting everything together to make a functional program.

Ha, that is what makes someone a good developer, and that every good developer is aiming.

On programming, reading a book about a language and its structures is easy and does not make you a programmer yet. To assemble all this knowledge in something functional is the tricky part.

So, prepare yourself to practice a lot. Create a lot of simple programs about every single topic you find: pointers, memory management, data structures (lists, stacks, trees...), classes, modifiers, etc.
Then you can start assembling this stuff together.

Still, you won't have mastered any of those fields. You will have to learn how to assemble them in a way that is not harmful for your computer: does not leak resources, does not crash, etc.

There is a movie featuring Jackie Chan and Jet Lee where JC says to his apprentice "You have to empty your cup first".
Programming is like that: when you think you mastered something (you filled your cup), you have to empty it because there is much more to learn

Practice makes perfect, 3-4 months is no time at all.

Bullshit...
In 3-4 months and good determination a person can learn shitload of stuff.
I learned most of advanced c++, basic java, SDL API, sfml API in time of 6 months.
To top that all i started about 100 projects finished about 30.
And cream on top, I work 10 hours a day 20 days in month...

The reason of my success is " I just love writing/reading code! ",

I am not finding myself having a hard time learning this.
And
Art is out of the question my art skills suck

That is what you really need, programing to not be dull process.

Art... Well as you stated you want to be a programmer not a artist. Download free art, give credit to artist and use it in your game... simple!

EDIT: If your don't feel confident enough to jump to a API and use it.
Try making you self a goal to make something somebody could actually use or,
A calculator that handles "Adding" in console.
then add "Subtracting"...
The point is to train how to make stuff. You will stumble on "difficulties/how to make that" and solving problems is important in programing.
After you done that, try thinking of a way to improve the code you made to make it more efficient.

Hope it helps.

You remind me a bit of myself when I first started learning about computer programming. That makes me think that you might be subject to one of the biggest mistakes that I made as well: programming, for a beginner, has a lot less to do with understanding things that you can find in books and internet tutorials than you may think.

At its core, computer programming is about solving problems, and that isn't something that you will develop by trying to memorize the minutia of your chosen language and design approaches without trying to apply your knowledge. I would suggest that you start working on some (very) small projects now, using what you've already learned. That will help you to cement your skills and suggest things that you can learn more about.

As you find problems that you don't already know how to solve, you can experiment or do some research on possible approaches. When you've solved the problem you'll have improved your skills and seen how programming works in practice for that situation.

I like simon's suggestions, and I would also recommend something like a text-based game interface or, if you'd like a challenge, a graphical menu interface using a library like SDL or SFML. Those projects will be very educational and will also give you some code that you can use to build a game later on.

[quote name='SimonForsman' timestamp='1352965490' post='5001130']
Practice makes perfect, 3-4 months is no time at all.

Bullshit...
[/quote]

Why don't you take it down a notch?

[quote name='SimonForsman' timestamp='1352965490' post='5001130']
Practice makes perfect, 3-4 months is no time at all.

Bullshit...
In 3-4 months and good determination a person can learn shitload of stuff.
I learned most of advanced c++, basic java, SDL API, sfml API in time of 6 months.
To top that all i started about 100 projects finished about 30.
And cream on top, I work 10 hours a day 20 days in month...

The reason of my success is " I just love writing/reading code! ",

I am not finding myself having a hard time learning this.
And
Art is out of the question my art skills suck

That is what you really need, programing to not be dull process.

Art... Well as you stated you want to be a programmer not a artist. Download free art, give credit to artist and use it in your game... simple!

EDIT: If your don't feel confident enough to jump to a API and use it.
Try making you self a goal to make something somebody could actually use or,
A calculator that handles "Adding" in console.
then add "Subtracting"...
The point is to train how to make stuff. You will stumble on "difficulties/how to make that" and solving problems is important in programing.
After you done that, try thinking of a way to improve the code you made to make it more efficient.

Hope it helps.
[/quote]

I've been programming for 18 years, i'd say 3-4 months is pretty much nothing(at uni i had people who couldn't grasp things properly after 4 years), people learn at different paces and spend different amount of time learning (Lots of people have more than one thing that occupies their time when they're not working / going to school)

I really want to learn how to make video games I don't see myself being happy doing anything other than that.

Well, Ryan, you can do only things which make you happy if you want, but let us compare programming to other challenging things:

An athlete wants to only be happy doing a sport, so no practice, no drills, no weight lifting, and definately no scrimmage for you!

A student wants to only be happy at school, so no homework, no lectures, no computer time, no library study, and also no tutoring for you!

A spouse wants to only be happy in a marriage, so no chores, no going to work, no paying the bills, and certainly no asking the better half for any favors!

Get my point?

Start with console games like Tic-Tac-Toe, crossword puzzles, mazes, and so forth. Decide that you are going to learn how to enjoy each stage of your learning, which really is a choice.

Trust me, I know from experience: Satisfaction is to be had in every phase of growth and makes it easier emotionally and intellectually - you learn better.

Looking long term, complex games will require personal maturity as well as other things, make no mistake about it - no way around it, so I urge you to rise to the challenge.


Clinton