I find learning the fundamentals of a topic can be quite dry and difficult to find motivation for. Formal education is great in these situations since the teacher forces you to learn it. Once you're more confident with your abilities and you have the basics figured out, then you can learn a lot of the rest through experimentation.
Staying motivated while learning? [Advice needed]
Welcome to gamedev Jaxter,
I wouldn't worry about people hating on your thread here. At most, people might harshly tell you "knock it off" if you demand the secrets on how to code an MMO or if you straight up ask us to do your homework.
There was a great thread on motivation a few months ago, here is a link to my post on the thread:
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/653198-how-to-overcome-biggest-hurdle-motivation/#entry5130107
Motivation is a very common problem in game dev. It's an extremely complex discipline to learn and the tool that you use to learn is also the same device you use to procrastinate. That's not a great combination. It sounds like you might just be reading articles and tutorials. Be sure that you actually mess around with programming.
There's a pretty big investment of time to get over the inital hump of learning the basics (variables, input, looping, branching). And it feels silly to have to code "Hello World" or "Guess a Number" when you have ultimateGameIdea_01 waiting to steal the lion's share of the market. But those silly steps are the fundamental building blocks of damn near every programming language and concept. So listen to Mr. Miagi, and "Wax on. Wax off."
The only "trick" to learning is that you have to want to learn to program more than you want to goof off. When you have a block of free time, you have a decision to make: "I can play myFavoriteGame for a few hours or I can learn more about programming". If you always choose myFavoriteGame, you'll never be good at programming. Simple as that.
If you're still in High School, there's probably some kind of programming course you can take. Sign up for it! If you're in college, take the first real programming class. If you're an adult in the real world, buckle down and do it yourself.
Good luck!
- Eck
P.S. When you have some time, read that other thread since there was some great advice there as well. (jokingly arrogant: especially my post) I'm pleased to report that I've continued my dedicated motivation and completed a couple of stupid little games and I'm working on something I may actually release one day. /flex
I really appreciate the advice you have posted. (I'm sure the post in the other thread is great, considering the greatness of this one). I'm currently in my last month of High School and I've finished my computing course. However, it didn't involve any kind of programming at all, just working with spreadsheets and creating a multimedia product. In all honesty, I believe that creating a schedule and planning my time will be good for me. (p.s. nice karate kid reference).
Valve, the company that made Half Life and Portal, was a year late with Portal two. Their reason?
"Making games is hard."
There are no tricks, secrets, or short cuts. But then again, nothing worth doing is easy, is it? I can guarantee that every one here who is a great programmer has gone through exactly what you're going through right now. Some may have gotten through it faster than others, but so what.
And guess what? When you get really stuck, we're here to help!
Some inspiring words - much appreciated.
I find learning the fundamentals of a topic can be quite dry and difficult to find motivation for. Formal education is great in these situations since the teacher forces you to learn it. Once you're more confident with your abilities and you have the basics figured out, then you can learn a lot of the rest through experimentation.
I prefer being independent when learning though. Although, I wouldn't mind teaming up with other novice programmers in the same boat as me in future.
i think having both long term and short term goals is important.
starting with long term, for me, id eventually like to start my own buisness that could hopefully produce revolutionary advances in the field of artificial intelegence. of course this is long term, ive barely been programming for a couple months, and it very well could not end up happening, but its like shooting a gun or a bow. you gotta have something you're aiming for.
next ill say a bit about short term goals, for me, the only reason im making any progress in my programming skills outside of school is because i have realistic short term goals. one of my first goals after id learned the basics of the language im using was to get to a point where i could do something! with graphics, after that, i told myself id make a tick tack toe game, (your goals by no means need to follow what im doing, because they need to be goals that make you keep getting behind your keyboard) i set that goal two weeks ago, and today i finally finished my first really game involving graphics :) its pretty horrible, ill admit that, but i did it, and thats what counts.
anyways hope my rambling has helped.
I really appreciate the advice you have posted. (I'm sure the post in the other thread is great, considering the greatness of this one). I'm currently in my last month of High School and I've finished my computing course. However, it didn't involve any kind of programming at all, just working with spreadsheets and creating a multimedia product. In all honesty, I believe that creating a schedule and planning my time will be good for me.
Happy to help. :) If you do go to college, make sure if you do sign up for a computer course that it is for actual programming. Otherwise you may find yourself learning what a mouse is and how to "double-click"...
But don't goof-off until college! Get started now you slacker! (But also be sure to have some fun this summer)
- Eck
(p.s. nice karate kid reference).
You have renewed my hope for the next generation.
I found myself being motivated more with each achievements, though what I call 'achievement' would certainly be different than you. For example, I considered it an important achievement when I finally became comfortable enough to write programs in object-oriented style. I considered it achievement when I first made my own map parser, and another achievement when I successfully implemented game states in XNA. These 'achievements' propels my motivation upward, and thus I keep on learning, despite knowing that my codebase is messy.
I think you should find what you would consider an achievement, and achieve it. Maybe you would call successfully drawing a sprite onscreen an achievement? Or when you successfully implemented a simple collision system? I don't know. But achieving something is important for motivation. Try it. :)
I find just always working on a game (regardless of how silly or simple the game is) to be really helpful. As I learn, I try to take what I'm learning and apply it to a game, so they're always evolving. But, that way, there's always a kind of real gratification to what you're learning, it's not just abstract knowledge. I'll occasionally start a new game from scratch, but more often than not I'm just adapting my existing games with what I'm currently learning.
I personally sometimes have a problem with learning simply for learning's sake and can get bored or frustrated easily, but there's a real sense of enjoyment and gratification when you can take what you're learning and apply it to something and have it successfully work (plus I tend to retain knowledge better if I'm applying it).
I recently started doing these month long game jams. There's no real restrictions or rewards or anything, but they'll give a theme each month and everyone develops something within that time. I find it forces me to focus a bit with a deadline (regardless of how arbitrary it is 
) and keeps me motivated to keep working on it. Plus, it's an easy way to get feedback, advice and criticism, and to see what others are doing.
The only times I really find myself losing motivation is when I've been stuck on a particular problem for too long and I'm not making progress. I'm too stubborn to move onto something else, but the frustration with not making progress can be a real killer for my motivation. Though, when I finally can get past the problem I'm usually twice as renewed as before, so
The game jam I've been using is:
Though, there are certainly many others out there, and likely even a local google group or meetups for game developers in your town (there is for mine, and I'm not in a terribly large city). I'm personally too shy and misanthropic to venture out and socialize with others but I'm certain for a different personality type that could be really helpful in staying interested/motivated.
@Misantes, I didn't know such monthly game jam existed. Thanks a lot for sharing that info. +1 for you :)
@Truerror
It's good fun!
Though, for better or worse, the format is reaaaaaally relaxed. I sometimes wonder if it's just a place for everyone to display what they're working on. But, I think if you try to stick to the spirit of it, it's a fun thing to do 
Another I've been looking at is:
http://makega.me/category/pageants
It's also a month long but, I haven't done that one yet, so can't really speak for it.
I personally like the month long format. With a full time job and a wife it's sometimes difficult to dedicate the time to something like Ludum Dare (that one always intimidates me) or a lot of the other jams where you have to physically go somewhere and do all the coding there. I understand why they do that format, it's just not for me
Though, they even now have the more relaxed 72 hour jam where you can use your pre-made art and work with a team. Someday...I'll plan ahead and take the time off for that one
edit*
and eep. I didn't mean to sidetrack the thread. My apologies! Carry on!
I found myself being motivated more with each achievements, though what I call 'achievement' would certainly be different than you. For example, I considered it an important achievement when I finally became comfortable enough to write programs in object-oriented style. I considered it achievement when I first made my own map parser, and another achievement when I successfully implemented game states in XNA. These 'achievements' propels my motivation upward, and thus I keep on learning, despite knowing that my codebase is messy.
I think you should find what you would consider an achievement, and achieve it. Maybe you would call successfully drawing a sprite onscreen an achievement? Or when you successfully implemented a simple collision system? I don't know. But achieving something is important for motivation. Try it.
"what I call 'achievement' would certainly be different than you. For example, I considered it an important achievement when I finally became comfortable enough to write programs in object-oriented style" Being comfortable enough to write programs in object-oriented style would certainly be an achievement to me. Making a sprite appear on a screen would be a massive achievement too. But yes, applying what I'm learning to things I'm interested in has increased my motivation, and has certainly decreased the amount of time I procrastinate. I have already begun taking your suggestion with achievements. Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
I find just always working on a game (regardless of how silly or simple the game is) to be really helpful. As I learn, I try to take what I'm learning and apply it to a game, so they're always evolving. But, that way, there's always a kind of real gratification to what you're learning, it's not just abstract knowledge. I'll occasionally start a new game from scratch, but more often than not I'm just adapting my existing games with what I'm currently learning.
I personally sometimes have a problem with learning simply for learning's sake and can get bored or frustrated easily, but there's a real sense of enjoyment and gratification when you can take what you're learning and apply it to something and have it successfully work (plus I tend to retain knowledge better if I'm applying it).
I recently started doing these month long game jams. There's no real restrictions or rewards or anything, but they'll give a theme each month and everyone develops something within that time. I find it forces me to focus a bit with a deadline (regardless of how arbitrary it is
The only times I really find myself losing motivation is when I've been stuck on a particular problem for too long and I'm not making progress. I'm too stubborn to move onto something else, but the frustration with not making progress can be a real killer for my motivation. Though, when I finally can get past the problem I'm usually twice as renewed as before, so
The game jam I've been using is:
Though, there are certainly many others out there, and likely even a local google group or meetups for game developers in your town (there is for mine, and I'm not in a terribly large city). I'm personally too shy and misanthropic to venture out and socialize with others
I can't seem to find anyone in my town who shares the same interests (I'm sure there is though). Thanks for the great advice, and the site you have referred me to is awesome.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to post advice in the thread. As a result of your helpfulness, I have started improving.
I've been developing games for over 10 years, and I suffer from extreme procrastination. I have (tried) to develop a method which has worked for me when starting new projects, especially in a new language.
- Set a small goal, and only dedicate half an hour to an hour on it.
- This goal needs to accomplish an objective that will give you what I call 'gratification' (see further down).
- Work in steps, from the basics to the more advanced theory (ex: variables to polymorphism) for each unit (half hour objective)
- Extra step: Take what excites you the most about programming and try to incorporate it into each half hour 'unit'.
By gratification I am talking about a visual 'benchmark'. For me, what is satisfying about programming is seeing how I manipulated the computer into doing what I want.
When working with basics like variables its hard to visually 'see' any progress, which when exposed to for too long, leads me to de-motivation. If I am learning how to read/write variables in a new language, I will create a basic output function that parses a group of objects by a key associated to their assigned variables and output the results so I can interact with the program. That's just me incorporating what interests me into my learning schema.
It's helpful to have short 'tutorials' to follow. When learning jQuery I made a list of what I wanted to learn first (sliding/fading navigation bars/ image scaling & popup windows) and I dedicated an hour a day to one tutorial. It satisfied my 'gratification' because I could see the results of my sliding nav bar.
I've also found doing too much in a short time leads me to eventual failure. Be the tortoise, not the hare.
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