   Where to start!!
  My 8yr old son is very much into gaming and is a very intelligent young man (he is mentally equiv to a 12 yr old), I am trying to get him to focus on something he enjoys as he is getting depressed at school as children his age are being nasty to him, well he has decided he would like to learn to design and create computer games. So I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as to which books I should get for him and what GCSE's would be best for him to concentrate on. Any help is greatly appreciated.Many thanksRachel   
  Maybe you could look around and find some free online books? I'm sure there are some. I never actually bought any books myself on game development so I cant really recommend any, sorry.   ;  Hi Mystical,I understand your query, just one small thing, when books in the industry are written, the majority of them are aimed at other industry professionals, or at least people of a greater age.However, one great thing about the industry is that it is a very creative industry, and kids are very creative. This would lead me to believe that maybe some aspects of the game design area. You could encourage the childs artistic qualities, which would be of great benefit later in his childhood when he gets to an age were he can dicide fully for himself which area he would potentially like to enter. To answer your questions on books, maybe find out which genres of games he particularly likes and maybe get one or two books on game design in those areas.hope this helps   ;  I'd recommend him getting into Microsoft's XNA.He can do this for free too.Download the "Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition" (then get the service pack)http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/aa975050.aspxScroll down to "Step 2"(the service pack 1 is on that page as well just a little lower on "Step 3")Don't forget to register! (It will only work for 30 days if you don't)And then download "Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express Refresh"http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=12ADCD12-7A7B-4413-A0AF-FF87242A78DE&displaylang=enNo service pack for that one.He will need to learn a bit of C# (Can anyone recommend any good books for beginners on C#?) and there are a few XNA books out there (I recommend Benjamin Nitsche's book - Professional XNA Game Programming: For Xbox 360 and Windows)http://www.amazon.com/Professional-XNA-Game-Programming-Windows/dp/0470126779/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8153368-1513607?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189021363&sr=8-1Microsoft has also made it easy with their creators website (free downloads and game examples).http://creators.xna.com/Plus there are MANY other XNA development sites (just google for "XNA").I can relate to what your son is going through, I was "gifted and talented" myself when I was young (taught myself QBasic at around his age and made a bunch of text RPGs ;) ).Hope this helps,DavidEdit:  Thanks Crypter![Edited by - shadowDragon on September 6, 2007 9:29:53 PM];  I don't know about your son, but for me it's very hard to learn programming and game design without having actual programmers around to explain things.  Sure I can read all the books I want, but nobody tells me what the terms mean, and definitions don't mean a whole lot.My advice, if you have a programmer friend, try and talk him into teaching the boy, or can enroll him in some kind of class(even if it's an online class), that would be better than any book.   ;Quote:(sorry I don't know the key word to turn these into links on this forum)They are just the HTML anchor <a> tags. i.e...<a href="http://www.example.com">Example</a>Produces:ExampleI would probably recommend starting with something simple at first, such as a BASIC language (I heard Quick BASIC was pretty good). This will allow him to learn the basics of programming while being able to produce something with graphics alot quicker.Alot of young kids may get discouraged if they have to work alot to produce simple graphics; or even learn concepts that do not directly relate to their game in mind. Then again, I do not know your child, so this might not be true[smile]You can also try a GameMaker program. This will allow him to learn basic game concepts, and even some scripting, without all of the assets of programming. Afterwords, when he feels ready, he can move onto a more complex language like C++, C#, Java, et al.If he is really up to it, I second learning C# first. Providing how well he does, he may then learn a more complex language like C++.   ;  Allow your son to develop his imagination and improve creativity as opposed to learning programming concepts.perhaps your son would be better off with a package such as FPSCREATOR http://www.fpscreator.com/ , ok, so it's not the best software around but it is affordable and you can get started almost immediately, this will allow your son to focus on game design as opposed to programming syntax - which can be very frustrating and demotivational if things go wrong.your son could create a basic game in a weekend which will help him to develop creatively - nothing better than to see a project to fruition :)once your son becomes comfortable with this he can then start the more technical route of programming :)in terms of GCSE's, maths and science are very important subjects to study, but dont worry too much about what he should be studying for games, what is more important is the ability to be good at most subject for all round development.I can't stress this enough -"imagination is more important than knowledge" , Einstein   ;  Hi.I started into programming at the age of 14 by myselfI learned C++ pretty much by "reverse engeneering"I read a small tutorial of C++ and then started with many source codes, removing and debugging seeing what the code was actually doing.As far as Documentation goes, I've read the manuals from what I was using. i.e. Direct X SDK Documentation is VERY good(SDK stands for Software Development Kit and they're mostly used for developing programs using 3rd party tools.)In my personal experience, I started with XGL, a Glide Wrapper for Direct3D. Then I wrote some tiny applications until I got better. Then I wrote my own image viewer from scratch, which was actually pretty good but never released because of some video driver stability issues. I also released a project on sourceforge (x86mph) and I'm part of the ClamWin antivirus team now.Now (I'm 19) I'm making my first big 3D game. However I'm not studying a programming-related career and thus have little time to code now. Probably your kid will have much time for it.As for example (open source code) the best choice is to look at http://sourceforge.netAfter choosing the programming language (C++ is the most used for games, although the hardest) for compiling programs he will need compilers. These are free from Microsoft (there are other options):http://msdn2.microsoft.com/es-ar/express/aa975050.aspxThen I strongly recommend downloading the Plattform SDK and DirectX SDK, both from the microsoft page too.OpenGL SDK can be also downloaded from Internet.Hope this helps.Dark SylincEDIT: gamedev.net itself has very useful resources:http://www.gamedev.net/reference/;  You may want to take a look at the Kids Programming Language (KPL) which is a programming language aimed for kids that are your son's age.   ;  If he's having trouble with social situations... picking up a hobby like programming / game development, might only make him more isolated, and although it'll be a good career later on in life, it may not be the happiest/wisest way to deal with the situation.I know I'll get flamed for this, but it's simply my opinion:SMART people make good programmers.  But in my opinion, WISE people do not.Would a WISE person decide to sit on a computer and figure out small problems and details that might possibly never apply to anything outside the computer?Crazy people, yes.  WISE people?  Hmm, largely debatable.Either way, I'm not trying to discourage him from learning to code, but if he does not deal with these bullies early on, it can lead to complications later on in life.  At least from my observation.   