Current Events > How hard is it to get into programming in your 30s?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As a career. I've done some coding (html and others) and I enjoyed it. I mean, I have gotten stuck but finding the solution is satisfactory.

I think I would enjoy doing this. However, I dont know how long I'd spend in school. I have a full time job. I could afford wprking part time for a while though in order to study or something.

I mostly want to try video game development.

What do you guys recommend?

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Unleash the limit on your abilities. There are people who start medical school in their 50s.
There are people in their 90s sitting in advanced theoretical physics courses.
You can try video game development with Unreal Engine as a start, and if you think you need help, start schooling. If you hate it, then maybe it's not your cup of tea. But you can do it if you want to. You're a person, and people are really smart.

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Its harder to learn anything as you get older

Not impossible though
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pipebomb_phil posted...

I mostly want to try video game development.

Game development can be pretty rewarding depending on how much excitement you find in the journey as opposed to the destination. This is a field where your excitement can't be primarily fueled by the end goal (releasing a finished game). If you find excitement in creating the smaller things that make up a game, like, a dialogue system, having characters interact with each other, making things blow up, etc., you'll probably end up sticking with it for much longer. This might seem like a no brainier to some people, but a lot of people get turned off early when they realize that games are literally just hundreds/thousands of separate programs that are all tied together.

As for a starting point, I think you should try starting with learning the basics of programming. Although there are a lot of game dev tutorials that claim to be suitable for absolute beginners, it can be overwhelming trying to take in information specific to game development while also trying to wrap your head around basic programming logic. I'd argue that the beginning of learning game development is the hardest part just because there's a pretty hefty information hurdle that needs to be gotten over before you can actually start making things without getting stuck on every little step of the process. Learning the basics of programming separately will make crossing this hurdle much smoother.

Sticking with easier-to-learn engines will also make this first hurdle easier to cross. If you're interested in 2D, learn GameMaker. If you're interested in 3D, learn Unity. Dont waste too much time picking an engine. If youre worried about the possibility of regretting your choice, just remember that transitioning between engines isnt too difficult nowadays because theres lots of documentation that can aid with the process (assuming you're switching from one popular engine to another popular engine).

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