Fundamentals of 2D Game Engines with C++ SDL and Lua

An excellent course is: Fundamentals of 2D Game Design

The only thing is that he's using C++ and SDL library, which I'm not particularly keen on. But where the course hooks you is the guys's proficiency and game design. How he breaks down concepts of 2d design and helps you build a simple game along with him.

The same concept can be realised in rust or monogame which I plan to do. Excellent ECS implementation and he goes into detail explaining ticks, delay time, why it matters?

Plus he builds it from scratch, and uses just SDL library. The. He goes on to make an AssetManager to manage assets, Texture Manager to load Textures.

All you need to design a level is add entities and add transform component and sprite component to these entities.

Hz is a standard unit of measure. Cycles per second. 1000 ms divided by 60 will give you the duration in ms of each cycle.

If you find this kind of stuff interesting, I would recommend looking into a class or literature on the subject. Most game loop concepts won't be in implemented in JS, but if you can learn in it a language like C++, you'll be able to translate the business logic with ease. I'm unsure why you'd need, nor want, to move your single player game onto the server-side of the house.

Just my 50 cents, but to be a game developer, as in gameplay programmer, you need to learn C++, and when you fully grasp that (c++ is one of the hardest language to learn cuz memory management), learn design patterns for games, when you grasp that, make game prototypes, preferable working in unreal engine 4 and using c++, and blueprinting where needed, but as much c++ as possible. Build up a good portfolio and start applying to AAA companies. If you have the skills and portfolio you will get hired no matter what age.

This might take you 1-3 years depending on your dedication and time investment.

In the meantime keep your regular job for having a finance.

(Udemy is a good source to find all these courses what I just mentioned, but books are good too).

On udemy there are several good videos

Learning c++ https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=C%2B%2B Learning design pattern+some game engine fundamentals https://www.udemy.com/course/cpp-2d-game-engine/

These are good books to start https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ C++ primer (starting c++) Google more yourself

I'm assuming you want to work on gameplay, but there is also graphics programmer to work on engines, it's a lot harder and more things to learn so I don't recommend that as a beginner.

Source: myself, game developer

Edit: also since you live in montreal, try to contact a programmer within ubisoft montreal, treat them to lunch and ask them stuff, or try to find someone through discord or LinkedIn and ye send them a message. Most people dont mind answering a couple of questions. What you could also do is just go to the office and ask if you could make an appointment or get contact details of someone (programmer or recruiter) that can answer your questions.

Nothing is stopping you from being a game developer except yourself

Edit2: definitely try to contact a recruiter from a game company in your city, you have 20 years of skills behind you, maybe you can find a job within one of those companies (web design and you could be a game tester on the side too, so you would remain having a nice income) and slowly transition to a gameplay/ai programmer as you learn in your spare/personal time.