Very similar story here. I was in middle school when the follow-up Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus came out [0]. I read it cover to cover and proceeded to buy as many Premier Press books I could get using money I'd save from doing chores around the house. This wasn't pre-Internet but the best material was by far still in books. My dad would pay $5 per hour so if I worked hard I could buy another book after a weekend of yardwork. Those middle and early high school years were incredible. You could still understand the cutting-edge and a single person could still make something big like RollerCoaster Tycoon or Doom. I made a bunch of games, isometric ones, worlds in D3D and OpenGL, physics sims, learned CS algorithms, made pixel art and 3d models in 3ds max, and even made my way to a game developer's conference as an awkward teenager. The only downside to all this is it pulled me away from schooling. I probably could have gone to a better university and had an easier time the first few years of career had I put just a little more effort into classes, but that's life. No regrets.

[0] https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Gentoomen%20Library/Game%20Develo....