aloo, i'm one of the SEGD students, currently in gamma(2nd year)...

since u want to be a game programmer, i think it should be Software Engineering and Games Design course...
lolz, xonius is not, he said that he takes ISE(Information System Engineering)...

and as SEGD students, IMHO, it really does benefits me, coz i know nothing about programming b4 and the games class is really helpful to let us knows how the games industry works, oversea and locally...though, like the blog from my senior, exiang said, it is a poor course with not much focus on games at all, simply because around 80% of our subjects, is same with other courses, so, the scope is general and more to Sofware Engineering area...

in ur case, since u already have a degree, u can just skip the alpha(foundation year) in mlk and straight join the course in beta(1st year of degree), and u might creadit transfer certain subjects from ur previous degree and make the course shorter...

though, i wouldn't really suggest u to grab another degree as u already have one, what i can say is that, books are quite helpful but people with experience is the key...so, grab couple of books and gather with experience people, might them be a hobbyist, game industry people, or graduate that have the same passion, games development...
firstly, i would like to apologise for what i'll be replying later on...

since u said it urself, u don't know how to start, so, i assume that u never programmed a game before, games programming is different from conventional software, it have certain mechanics or method that u will only know if u've programmed one...

with that in mind, RTS isn't really a good choice, even though it is only a demo or something, the scope is to big, unless u have a team around 10 members will enough experience in game development, else it will be a nightmare for u...

and another thing is, it would be a god bless if there is a standard of "Step by step to develop an RTS game", but game development teams are different, game studios are different, the way of doing it if different, the resources and other aspects should be taken in consideration also...though, i admit that there is some core things that is same all around the world, and if there is one, it would be how the games works, IMHO, that will determine how to develop it...though,l there is certain books on the shelves that give step by step to do it, but then, u will need to compromise certain thing and do it in ur own way, what i'm talking here is about development, not only programming...and sorry i didn't know any books or links to really help u...

last point, maybe u should take a look at games engines that support RTS gameplay...
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

This post has been edited by heterosapiens: Sep 21 2005, 01:59 PM

i've replied earlier but LYN rollback...so, here i post again...

http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?threadid=21231

and here is what i would suggest for indies and hobbyist

http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopic=286441

May i ask, the comparison you want is betweeen various 3D modeling software and various game engines or the comparison between both of them...?

So far, i haven't see any comparison site...only review of each differently...what actually you want to find out?

lol...true...just want to clarify that first, before jumping in to help

http://www.devmaster.net/engines/faq.php
*i'm not sure if it is free or not*

here is some that google found...

http://www.truevision3d.com/phpBB2/forum-22.html
*don't believe it all, TV3D sucks for C++ users*

mostly, i would suggest to read reviews and complaint from others...but i've been suggested by couple of local game developers to use Dark Basic Pro...regarding 3D modeling software, i can't help much...

err...i don't quite get that..what you trying to say?

and may i ask again : what actually you want to find out?

I have this :

http://www.jasonlam604.com/ - J2ME & Gaming by Jason Lam

Steady job in the games industry or any field will do?

I know a lot of my seniors have steady job and some even make it to the games industry. Anyway, your question and my answers doesn't really reflects to whether someone taking games related course will have a future career or not.

Wow, its been awhile since this thread have a visitor that post.

For audio programming, I'm not so sure about it. But this is what google gets me.

http://www.thefreecountry.com/documentatio...linesound.shtml
http://www.thefreecountry.com/sourcecode/audio.shtml

Or you could check out these books.

Beginning Game Audio Programming - Mason McCuskey
Focus On SDL - Ernest Pazera

I'm not sure what happened to gameprogramming.org their website is down as of the time of this post made.

If you plan to use a 3D game engine (or 3D rendering engine sort of like) for that, I would suggest either these two

http://www.ogre3d.org/
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/

Ogre seems to have more active community and the future for the game engine is very bright but it is not the complete API to create a game. On the contrary Irrlicht is more complete together with sound API(IrrKlang) but have less promising development path.

All the best

There's LKW, MMU, APIIT, and HELP to choose from.
Take a look at :
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/IPCC
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/Computer+Casual+Game
I would suggest Unity3D for starters, Torque is quite good, but it was built on an old code-base.

For a job around South East Asia, check these links out :

Malaysia
Singapore
Jobber Wokky

Drop by to the local IGDA chapter meeting to know more.