   Needing Some Direction
  Hi, I'm getting towards the end of my degree of Game Programming and Simulation. I have some programming experience but mainly from what I've done in school which I had to do all my courses online since there wasn't a school in my area that offered the same degree so I'm lacking in motivation in direction as have no one to work with and can't seem to find the right project that can help me learn more about C++ programming and game development. So am asking if anyone in the community knows of a good place that I should start that can help me get on track.   
  What projects have you done?I would suggest staying simple, if you're working on your own. The main thing is make sure you complete your projects, even simple tetris games make good examples for starting a portfolio.   ;  Well, in school I've done two XNA projects as only had to modify them to make the game I was making for the classes which wasn't a whole lot and I've done an AI course, Direct X and Open GL course and few other courses. I'll take your suggestion and try making a simple pong game in C++ and try to see what other simple games I can make to help familarize myself more with C++ and game programming. I also wanna try messing more with Direct X/Open GL so if you have any suggestions for those that would be awesome. Thanks for the help.   ;Well, in school I've done two XNA projects as only had to modify them to make the game I was making for the classes which wasn't a whole lot and I've done an AI course, Direct X and Open GL course and few other courses. I'll take your suggestion and try making a simple pong game in C++ and try to see what other simple games I can make to help familarize myself more with C++ and game programming. I also wanna try messing more with Direct X/Open GL so if you have any suggestions for those that would be awesome. Thanks for the help.It depends on the person, if you want to take the long road, you can jump straight into learning DX or OGL (I'd make sure you're familiar with your language first, C++ in this case), or you could start with a simple framework that will let you finish projects faster. Such as SFML, SDL or XNA. The main thing is keep on coding and don't get ahead of yourself. Just like with a verbal language, the more you use it, the better you'll be at it.   