03-03-2013, 05:50 PM
Programming books are legendary. I read a huge C++ one once, did the exercises in it and everything. One of my most enjoyable and educational learning experiences ever. In the end it resulted in still just making console programs though, so I decided to go with Flash for more immediate results. I plan to eventually get back to it but for now I'm sticking with AS3 since it can do more than enough for me, and I don't really have the time to learn C++.
Anyway what I want to say is you should be prepared to learn a lot and invest lots of time. As you said it's best to know what's actually going on instead of just using libraries right away. However, you shouldn't hesitate to use libraries when making a game, as long as you understand what's going on most of the time. Most people use stuff like DirectX and OpenGL to render, and even things like Box2D for physics, so there's no need to try and make everything from scratch. It's good to know how to, but ultimately it's not really practical to do so if there's already stuff that does it.
That's coming from me, so take it as you will.
Anyway what I want to say is you should be prepared to learn a lot and invest lots of time. As you said it's best to know what's actually going on instead of just using libraries right away. However, you shouldn't hesitate to use libraries when making a game, as long as you understand what's going on most of the time. Most people use stuff like DirectX and OpenGL to render, and even things like Box2D for physics, so there's no need to try and make everything from scratch. It's good to know how to, but ultimately it's not really practical to do so if there's already stuff that does it.
That's coming from me, so take it as you will.