When did your journey with programming start and why?

[Falco Girgis]

When I was about 6 or 7, my dad tried to get me to learn QBasic. At first it was cool, then he started to beat me and get super pissy when I just couldn't understand it.

Many years later, I decided to get back into programming and jumped back into HTML to make my own gaming website. Not too long after that, I decided to further pursue programming to create my own games...

[ajtgarber]

When I was in 5th grade I got started in HTML and played with that for a while, came across a Java book in my basement and decided I wanted to try to make games with it. About three years ago I started playing with C++ and recently I've started
to make games with it.

Ever since elementary school I've been interested in computers and how they work, which got me into programming, from there something brought me into game development. But I'm not sure what it was.

[N64vSNES]

At first it was cool, then he started to beat me and get super pissy when I just couldn't understand it.

Care to elaborate? O_o

[dandymcgee]

At first it was cool, then he started to beat me and get super pissy when I just couldn't understand it.

Care to elaborate? O_o

Care to shut the fuck up?

[XianForce]

Well, for a large part of my life, I've been interested in math and computers. I was always the top of my class in math, and I always knew more about computers in general than most people within my school. Around my 8th grade year, I stumbled upon a video of a Super Smash Bros DS homebrew. A few link jumps later and I found PAlib. I used that for a small while, but soon lost interest because I didn't really know how to use any programming language (I was trying to use C at the time). Later during that year, I started dabbling in HTML and CSS and made a few websites, nothing decent though. Then I stumbled onto Elysian Shadows, and that's when I actually got into it .

[N64vSNES]

Care to shut the fuck up?

Well you're by far the nicest person I've ever met

[LeonBlade]

Well, when I was younger I first received Final Fantasy VII from my older brother. Not as a gift, but just randomly because he wasn't interested in the game. I loved the game so much, and it continues to be my favorite game. My cousin had the game as well, and being the young kids we were, we were very imaginative and creative with different stories of our own we would come up with. We would pull in ideas almost directly from games like Final Fantasy VII or VIII and as kids would act them out. As we got older, we wanted to turn our ideas into an actual game someday. One day sometime in elementary school (can't really remember) I found RPG Maker 98 and was blown away at how cool it was. This was back when I had dial-up and it was such a pain to do anything. I remember sneaking downstairs on the computer late at night to connect to AOL hearing the annoying screeches of it connecting and going to download RPG Maker and have it download while everyone else was sleeping and I was supposed to be in bed (oh childhood memories). Eventually I played around with it and found it wasn't really too expansive, and then I found RPG Maker 2000 which was much better. I started to try to make my game in this, and we elaborated on the story more and more every day trying to put it in the game. We found RPG Maker 2003 and tried that out as well, but we didn't like the way the battle system worked, so we stuck with RPG Maker 2000 as it was pretty much the same thing. The problem was, I was never motivated to work on the game, it was just all story stuff and it wasn't any fun. Around sometime when I was younger I started to pick up some minor programming knowledge. It started off with MySpace... customizing the HTML crap they had, but it moved on. I started doing Visual Basic, and PHP and eventually moved on to C/C++. I started realizing that making games in RPG Maker wasn't going to get me anywhere, and I needed to try and teach myself to program and make the game myself from scratch. This has placed me in the mentality I am today, where I don't like using other SDKs to develop games or anything. I always think about writing things from scratch because I embedded it in my mind that I don't want to just take what's there, I want to create and build something myself.

So now here I am, I'm almost 20 years old, no college no job just; working freelance when I can to get money and I'm trying to make a game to fulfill my childhood dream.

Sorry for the large amount of text...

[dandymcgee]

Sorry for the large amount of text...

No need for an apology, that's a great story.

[SerenityDivide]

Well, when I was younger I first received Final Fantasy VII from my older brother. Not as a gift, but just randomly because he wasn't interested in the game. I loved the game so much, and it continues to be my favorite game. My cousin had the game as well, and being the young kids we were, we were very imaginative and creative with different stories of our own we would come up with. We would pull in ideas almost directly from games like Final Fantasy VII or VIII and as kids would act them out. As we got older, we wanted to turn our ideas into an actual game someday. One day sometime in elementary school (can't really remember) I found RPG Maker 98 and was blown away at how cool it was. This was back when I had dial-up and it was such a pain to do anything. I remember sneaking downstairs on the computer late at night to connect to AOL hearing the annoying screeches of it connecting and going to download RPG Maker and have it download while everyone else was sleeping and I was supposed to be in bed (oh childhood memories). Eventually I played around with it and found it wasn't really too expansive, and then I found RPG Maker 2000 which was much better. I started to try to make my game in this, and we elaborated on the story more and more every day trying to put it in the game. We found RPG Maker 2003 and tried that out as well, but we didn't like the way the battle system worked, so we stuck with RPG Maker 2000 as it was pretty much the same thing. The problem was, I was never motivated to work on the game, it was just all story stuff and it wasn't any fun. Around sometime when I was younger I started to pick up some minor programming knowledge. It started off with MySpace... customizing the HTML crap they had, but it moved on. I started doing Visual Basic, and PHP and eventually moved on to C/C++. I started realizing that making games in RPG Maker wasn't going to get me anywhere, and I needed to try and teach myself to program and make the game myself from scratch. This has placed me in the mentality I am today, where I don't like using other SDKs to develop games or anything. I always think about writing things from scratch because I embedded it in my mind that I don't want to just take what's there, I want to create and build something myself.

So now here I am, I'm almost 20 years old, no college no job just; working freelance when I can to get money and I'm trying to make a game to fulfill my childhood dream.

Sorry for the large amount of text...

Rock on man. You got inspired at a really young age. Keep on.

For me, I was more of the "user" of the wheel. My Dad gave me my first Nintendo (8-Bit goodness) when I was 6. We used to play Double Dragon, Contra, River City Ransom, Super C, and Jackal all the time together, having endless amounts of fun teaming up. (The good old days of true coop).

Time passed and suddenly the Nintendo 64 came out. Man how much fun that Christmas was, with Super Mario 64 and all the other games out there.

Nintendo 64 Kid ain't got nothing on me. <-- pretty much how I was during that Christmas... :D

I'm digressing though.

What actually got me into wanting to learn how to code was when I started messing around with the first Neverwinter Nights game by Bioware. They released a really cool Toolset / Map Editor / etc. that allowed players to make their own weapons, armor, items, etc.

I had a blast playing around with the features (being a kid back then you can guess what I did first. Create uber godly weapons to pwn everything lol). But after that, I saw that there was a backend scripting language called NWNscript, which loosely resembles C from what I've later come to find.

I knew absolutely nothing about coding, but after looking and comparing how the pieces of the code brought the game together, things started to "click" and I found myself able to gradually start implementing some custom game code on my own. That moment when you're like, "Ahha! I did it!" is probably one of the greatest feelings. So I started working on a Zombie Survival mod for NWN. It was tons of fun. Great learning experience as well.

And after a lot of (blah-blah-blah-blah) stuff you probably aren't interested in hearing, I think I've found a passion for this kind of stuff.

C++ is my target language of choice with my goal of being able to create a way to merge my passion of both music and gaming together.

One hell of a quest, but with forums like this, it's fun every step of the way! :D

[MadPumpkin]

When I was around 7-8, my brothers had been playing a game on computer that I had never seen before. It had amazing graphics! And the game play looked better than any N64 and NES game I had ever played (that's all I played). I started messing around in the game in my brothers castle. Soon I learned that this game was called Morrowind. For days I played and then my brother showed me about something called "a mod". This intrigued me, that's about it. For years that game was lost (not played) and just the usual games were played all the time. Till I was 9-10 I started dabbling in ActionScript 1.1 with Flash MX. I made my first tile system, but when I realized that collision actually takes effort, I mostly gave up for a while. Then one day I found a brownish game disk labeled "Morrowind" and I for some reason recognized the name. So I installed and played it, when the option came that said "Would you like to install the TES Construction Set?" I said, "Whatever the hell that means," and hit continue. Ever since then I have favored PC games.

One day I wanted to put a castle to store my crap, in the game. So I asked my brother how to get one, and he taught me how to install a mod. So later I typed into google (after flooding the damn game with every mod I found), "how to make Morrowind mod" and then I did it. Made my first quest. Then my first building, then my first NPC's and finally I knew how to do just about everything that the TES CS could offer including the scripting for the game. Ever since then I've been driven to make games. So I learned how to in flash, then in C, then Java. However, OOP was too complicated at the time, so I tried to find something else that would speed up the process. Started using Blitz BASIC/3D and made plenty of small demos. But I longed for more power then switched back to Java and learned about c++. Now I know and love C/++, (some) Java, Python, Lua and basic web coding.

Sorry, long story but whatever. If you care, you'll read it.

[LeonBlade]

Thanks, SerenityDivide! And I do like the feeling of things working, how it just all works out in the end; when you first get something to work when you didn't even think you'd be able to get as far as you did, it's awesome. One of the biggest reasons I'm a programmer is because it's a form of art really. It's creation, but to an advanced level. You can create anything you want on a computer if you wanted. Great story.

MadPumpkin, I did read it! It's awesome to get interested in this stuff at such a young age. I also got into Flash myself, it's one of my favorite things to play around with, but I haven't in quite some time. And good to see those programming languages, especially C++

[Nightspark]

It sort of came in waves, each one getting further than the last. To be honest, after reading about all you guys starting to program while still in grade school I feel like a late bloomer.

Part 1
When I was about 5-6 I just started designing games. I say design in the loosest sense of the word because these were the kind of "design documents" you'd expect from a kindergardener. Baseball was played with dice and dinosaur stamps, in fact I still remember some of the rules: point calculations were based on where each dinosaur was positioned on the field. If your opponent's T-rex rolled a 6 you were screwed, unless your Anklyosaurus blocked it with a 6 roll of it's own (I am not making this up), because we all know the dinosaur food chain worked like rock-paper-scissors, right?

I was not allowed to partake in family pictionary games (probably because they saw the aforementioned design docs), so I made my own; something involving dice, cutout cards, and what can only be described as a mutant Sorry! board. Followed this cycle a few more times: Battleship, Trouble, Fireball Island (seriously, how could anyone play Fireball Island and NOT want to make their own version). My parents threatened to take Mouse Trap away after I tried Macguyvering kitchen tools into it.

Part 2: Enter the NES
Kind of embarrassed on this one, but my Dad bought us a NES right before I turned 6 yet it did not occur to me to design my own video games until over a year later. My inspiration? I saw The Chipmunk Adventure and thought that balloon game looked awesome. My technology was limited to markers and construction paper (which is why it KILLS me to hear of all the 8 year old budding programmers out there. Sigh, so much time lost). Anyway, what followed were pen and paper versions of Mario 3, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, a kamikaze missile scroller, and two all out manuals for a hypothetical Mega Man 4 and Darkwing Duck. Imagine my chagrin when I learned those games already existed.

Part 3: The Newb Years
After a LONG hiatus, I picked up my old ambitions to make games. One of my high school math teachers (when I said long I wasn't kidding) mentioned that he also dabbled in computer programming. Until now, I'd thought of video games as works of alchemy, being crafted in a cyberpunk Karloff style lab. It did not occur to me that they were actually made by regular people. I heard the magic words "C Plus Plus" and was off to make my first game, a tactical submarine simulator... I was young, foolish, and had just read Hunt for Red October for the first time. Consider this my "how do I make an MMORPG moment"

Part 4: Trial and #error
Got my first PC and didn't waste anytime jumping into the PC game market. I bought Starcraft because it had a mission editor. I knew it would be limited but at least I could finally design my own games, without having to actually program. And then it happened... Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, and it came with all the editing tools. I could finally make my own FPS style games! I went online and discovered the world of modding. No actual games were completed (saved all my ideas though), but I did get a lot of practice in level design, 3d editing, basic AI, and several other game elements. This also got me into the world of serious game programming, where I actually took the time to learn the tools and methods of making real games. Learned I couldn't sell anything made with the Unreal engine unless I paid $$$ for a license. My rebuttal? "Fine, I'll write my own." Lots of learning, lots of cursing, lots of getting frustrated and quitting only to come back a few months later to try again, and around we go.

Part 5: The Current Era
Not sure what caused this, but I think it was a combination of my brother moving in with his PS3 and Wii, the complete loathing of my day job reaching an all time high, and discovering the Gyrovorbis and Lusikkamage youtube channels. I took everything I'd accumulated over the years and started from scratch. I put my grand designs for a Donkey Kong Country + GTA 3 clone on hold (it's better than it sounds, trust me) and dug out my old ideas. Started small and simple and planned on working my way up, only... it happened again; my eyes got bigger than my stomach and my once simple designs evolved into a magnum opus of sorts, all justified with "but it's only in 2D."
So now here I am, writing this obscenely long story which is likely to be of little interest to anyone but myself. This is probably just my way of procrastination on making my solid objects arc correctly when I throw them. Stupid gravity.

My apologies for this unsolicited saga. It's late, I'm rambling, and if you've read this far you have more patience than I do. Props.

[k1net1k]

Its unreal reading these stories. I didnt really have consoles when i was a kid, and i didnt start programming till later in life.

[MadPumpkin]

MadPumpkin, I did read it! It's awesome to get interested in this stuff at such a young age. I also got into Flash myself, it's one of my favorite things to play around with, but I haven't in quite some time. And good to see those programming languages, especially C++

Well thanks for the read, :P yea last time I messed around in flash was just a few days ago working out a prototype of my game menu system. Maybe I'll put it on my website when I update my site. But the last time I messed around with TES CS was a full conversion mod with a buddy of mine on Oblivion.

[mv2112]

My interest in programming was sparked after hanging out in my grandfathers basement which was filled with old windows 98/DOS machines all networked together.
When i was 10, i started with HTML, making pages with shit loads of <marquee>'s. Then went to C++ and made some console games/applications and got bored. After that i spent the next 2 years in PHP trying to make a facebook clone. After failing epically (no art skillz), i went on youtube and searched 'Making games' which led me to one of GyroVorbis's videos. Then, at the age of 13 i joined the forums, restarted my C++ career by buying some books like he said (and figuring out that you can include libraries in C++ applications), and watched the Adventures in Game Development Series. Made a bunch on non-finished C++ projects and now, i am the applications programmer for a indie game company.


I owe alot of my programming skillz to QpHalcy0n, Avansc, LeonBlade, eatcomics and other forum members for helping me out.

Chaos Rift FTW