Here is a little encouragement. You don't need a serious, hardcore knowledge of programming to make a video game...honestly! Just try to view your mistakes as a learning experience instead of giving up. I live by this saying: if you tell yourself you can't, then you won't because you have mentally decided that it's impossible.

I have not been formally taught how to program in C++ and I would not consider myself a professional programmer, yet I have been able to build a functional game prototype from nothing (it currently has animation, game states, and keyboard and mouse input) and with nothing but the information I happened upon on the internet.

I could suggest thenewboston on YouTube for very intuitive C++ tutorials that aren't bogged down with unnecessary and incomprehensible jargon. Furthermore, the videos are short and focus on a particular topic (which is good for me!)

C++ Tutorials:

I saw someone mention Lazyfoo and that is also a good resource. http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/ Please feel free to contact me if you need more references.

It is great to know that there are quality games out there which were developed entirely using engines. That really gives me a lot of hope. :)

I pretty much use Game Maker and a program called Scirra Construct 2. For Game Maker, I use scripting in the form of its GML language to get results. Scirra Construct 2 uses a drag-and-drop style event system that isn't too bad.

Almost never are my limitations in game logic (the code of the game you write). My limitations instead are in three areas:

1. Bugs in the actual program, or at least in Scirra Construct 2 and exporting, which set back my project.

2. Cost of the program. In the case of Game Maker, I'll have to pay an additional $200 to export to Android.

3. Art. If my art isn't good for the game, people are going to complain a lot more about it than me using Game Maker or Construct 2.

By the way, I don't consider myself a truely good programmer. I am a jack of all trades person, with okay scripting skills, basic programming skills, novice design and story skills, basic art skills, and a pretty large knowledge of computer hardware.

The issue isn't even cut and dry. It's not:

People who use creation software are beginners.
People who don't are experts.

It's more like:

Some people use creation software and are beginner scripters.
Some people use creation software and are expert scripters.
Some people code from scratch and are beginner programmers.
Some people code from scratch and are expert programmers.

Etc.

The vital question, since there's nothing necessarily too wrong with game creation software like Game Maker, becomes...

Should I use Game Maker or code more from scratch?

For this question, it will be up to you and you'll probably get many different answers.

Hope this helps :).

You know - just thought I would mention - I hated computer science.. It just wasn't a very fun or challenging program at my University. I got my degree in something else instead that I was more interested in while learning to program on my own.

I love programming and I have made a lot of stuff by now!

My point is that just because you don't like comp sci doesn't mean you don't like programming or coding in games. Go ahead and get your degree in a program that is interesting to you at the University you are attending - but try learning some programming on your own for fun. I think you will be surprised at how much fun stuff you can do without needing a computer science degree.

A simple answer is: yes, you can make games without knowing how to program, make art or make music. But this means you'll need a bigger budget to hire programmers, artists and composers.

A game cannot be made with just an idea in your head, a GDD and concept art alone.

Don't worry too much about hating programming. I hated programming 2 years ago and now I'm really decent at it.

I also aim on learning to make art and music, first I want to be better at maths (I'm terrible at maths and yet I'm really good at programming, imagine that!).

It would help greatly to know exactly what you do not like about programming. I'm wondering if it's really the college experience? College and the real world are just so different.

The truth is that to be successful at almost anything, you need to be prepared to dig in and learn whatever is needed at the time to get to your goal. Especially if you want to do it all yourself, you are going to have to learn a bit of everything.

When you find out that your game needs a certain feature, and it requires some code, are you just going to dump the whole thing? Or will you find someone to do it for you or maybe learn just enough to write it yourself?

Context is really everything. You might hate writing code in college, but when you have this game you are working on and you need to write some code for it to work, you are going to look at it completely different then you are right now.

I would say stick with computer science, unless you just decide to go be a doctor or something. It's probably the best thing you can learn in college that would help you down the road in making games, even if you never write any code. Most aspects of game development have a lot of math and algorithmic problems to solve. And a degree in computer science will get you in the door even for non coding jobs. It's just such a good background to have in this industry.