I think the problem is word "Gurus", you are taking way too huge step, start from basics, man, that is what all in here have said and it ain''t wrong. Also learn to write code, it doesn''t help you if you just copy those sources and codes from book''s cd, you must learn to hand write. Always when I have option between copy and write i choose write because that is the only way to learn code, more you write, easier to understand it and cleaner your code is. There are 2 kinds of books, theory ones and example ones. Latter ones are for newbies and not so well programmers if isn''t separately mentioned to be advanched. Those theory books are exelent for advanched people, because they know how to write and they need more information like optimization, 3d APIS, OOP & stuff...
Time comes, time goes and I only am.
Help, I dunno how to game program!
I completely agree with Domini. I started out in QBasic and wrote my first game, which is now posted at qbasic.com. Then, I started to move on to QuickBasic (not much different than QBasic, but is really faster), and I just recently in the past year moved to J++, and then to C++. You can''t rush these things, they come in due time. My time took me almost 4 years, and probably now that I have the basic concepts of programming in my noggin'', I could learn any other language with lots more ease. Learning DOS programming does help understand the Windows API, even though they are 2 seperate things.
I can fully support what Xai said 
After numerous projects, you''ll eventually get some kind of instinct, on how you should approach different kinds of problems (like how you efficiently design data structures and such). But you''ll always face problems totally different from things you''ve done before.
Everything related to game programming evolves with time, underlying systems, the abilities of hardware, the APIs you use and even the language itself (-> C''99 standard).
I''ve made the experience that, when working on bigger projects which take months or even years to develope, you''ll gather so much experience that you''ll start to call the code you''ve written at the beginning crap. You''ve evolved further and that code is below you current level of ability, but it still is in the same project you''re working on - you cannot rework it since you''ll have meet the deadlines of your project. That''s the baddest thing on it...
-Markus-
After numerous projects, you''ll eventually get some kind of instinct, on how you should approach different kinds of problems (like how you efficiently design data structures and such). But you''ll always face problems totally different from things you''ve done before.
Everything related to game programming evolves with time, underlying systems, the abilities of hardware, the APIs you use and even the language itself (-> C''99 standard).
I''ve made the experience that, when working on bigger projects which take months or even years to develope, you''ll gather so much experience that you''ll start to call the code you''ve written at the beginning crap. You''ve evolved further and that code is below you current level of ability, but it still is in the same project you''re working on - you cannot rework it since you''ll have meet the deadlines of your project. That''s the baddest thing on it...
-Markus-
I did a similar thing when I got my copy of "Tricks of the..." I was building a new computer at the time and didn''t have all the parts yet so I decided to jump right in and read the book. Well, I ended up finishing it (more or less) before I was able to do anything on the comp. So, I finished and now had my computer ready to go and I said "now what?"
I STARTED TO READ THE BOOK AGAIN!
I would strongy recommend this! It really helped me to go somewhere with the programming. Since I already knew the general stuff I could focus on the code. I reread the first chapter about the BlackBox engine and then decided to mess around with the code. I took that skeleton, made some major changes to the Freakout code and ended up with a decent Tetris clone over the course of a couple days. I then forced myself to put in another week or so or tweaking to make it as good as I could... this step is very important and I was very happy with the results. For my first game it wasn''t bad (you can check it out at http://chippy.freeservers.com/tetrad.htm if you want)
After finishing one game (no matter how simple) your confidence will go WAY up. This is the best possible thing for your future games b/c you know that you can finish something. Now I''m starting to work on my next project (a PacMan style game with real graphics!) but this time I''m going to be spending more time developing a GPI (game programming interface... ie wrapper classes) to use not only for this game, but for future games. Already I''ve gone through several revisions of my GPI design idea, but it keeps getting better every time.
I''ve also been setting up a website for this project that you can check out at http://gpidev.freeservers.com if you are interested. The site is still very much under construction, but it should be usefull by this weekend at the latest, so stop on by and check it out
Finally, good luck on your first game!
-- Chip
I STARTED TO READ THE BOOK AGAIN!
I would strongy recommend this! It really helped me to go somewhere with the programming. Since I already knew the general stuff I could focus on the code. I reread the first chapter about the BlackBox engine and then decided to mess around with the code. I took that skeleton, made some major changes to the Freakout code and ended up with a decent Tetris clone over the course of a couple days. I then forced myself to put in another week or so or tweaking to make it as good as I could... this step is very important and I was very happy with the results. For my first game it wasn''t bad (you can check it out at http://chippy.freeservers.com/tetrad.htm if you want)
After finishing one game (no matter how simple) your confidence will go WAY up. This is the best possible thing for your future games b/c you know that you can finish something. Now I''m starting to work on my next project (a PacMan style game with real graphics!) but this time I''m going to be spending more time developing a GPI (game programming interface... ie wrapper classes) to use not only for this game, but for future games. Already I''ve gone through several revisions of my GPI design idea, but it keeps getting better every time.
I''ve also been setting up a website for this project that you can check out at http://gpidev.freeservers.com if you are interested. The site is still very much under construction, but it should be usefull by this weekend at the latest, so stop on by and check it out
Finally, good luck on your first game!
-- Chip
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