How I learned (Score 1)

My Dad was/is a programmer, and I always wanted to make games. I started trying when I was 11, trying to use engines and toolkits like rpgtoolkit , 'Custom' and a few others. There's a big list here: http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html

The problem was, they couldn't do exactly what I wanted, so I was always trying to use their little scripting languages for things they were never intended for. I always thought programming would be too hard though, and maybe it would have been at that time. I don't know. But when I was 13 or 14, I did learn C++, my first language. Basically, I just learned it from a big book my dad has. First I went part of the way through 'Instant C++ Programming' by Ian Wilks, and then I sopped learning for a while, and came back using 'The Waite Group's C++ Primer Plus' by Paul Snaith. C++ Primer Plus is a much better book, because it's newer, and teaches OOP better and stuff, but Instant C++ Programming might have been better for starting. For example, the C++ Primer Plus didn't even teach about if statements until the 5th chapter! So I was using 'while' loops, not to loop through stuff, but in place of if statements, because I wanted to use conditional stuff. But anyway, that's how I learned - just using the book, and trying to make games. I wanted (want) to make a big RPG. So, I started off with a VERY simple text based game, where if you pressed 'm' then 'Enter', it attacked in melee, 'M' and 'Enter' attacked with magic, and 'b' and 'Enter' attacked with a bow. You got experience for using each of those, and different stats went up or down depending on which you used most. I was /very/ ready for graphics by this time, even though I didn't even know about C++ classes yet, so I started using allegro. I began by simply using it to output text in a full screen environment, and enjoying being able to do stuff with single key presses. I then drew my own font to use for tiles, and then dropped that and began work on a space shooter game with my older brother. He still does most of the graphics and planning for our games, while I do all of the programming. We actually almost completed the engine for that game, but before we did, we moved back to what we /really/ wanted to make - a role playing game. I was able to start it knowing much more about both C++ and allegro because of the previous things. And that's where I am now. So far I've written about 13,000 lines of code on it. Unfortunately, now all my time is spent doing web development with my other older brother. All the C++ definitely helps me to learn anything new. I think it's definitely still my favorite though. ...and I'm only eighteen...

I guess in short, I was inspired to program because I wanted to make games, and I didn't want to be limited by using toolkits.