Hello all. I have a BS in Computer Science, and I currently work for an IT Department within a Medical School/Hospital as a Java/Oracle PL-Sql Developer. I have a strong desire to enter the Game Industry as a Developer. I've recently been spending a good amount of my spare time trying to build a skill set that will hopefully help me achieve this goal (practicing C/C++ programming, studying linear algebra, opengl, etc). I also plan on linking up with one of the local IGDA chapters for networking purposes. I would appreciate any advice that anyone is willing to give as far as steering me in the right direction. What sort of projects should I plan for myself? What books should I read, and in what order? Should I focus on any particular technologies or should I stay as general as possible? What other programming languages should I study? These are just a few of many questions that I have. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration. :)

I would recommend making small games like pong, tetris etc in the language of your choice or C#-XNA, since it eases your way into the game development paradigm.
(If you know java, C# shouldn't be too hard to pick it up)

Once you get involved in making these games, you will be faced with questions like how do i render them properly, how do i do collision detection etc. This would put your knowledge to test and practise.

After you're done completing these games , I think you would understand better what goes into making games and have a portfolio to show to the game studios.

Picking up theory is good and goes a long way, but the real fun is in making games!

Have fun