Before youguys go on about how there are many types of programmers, please read through the post.

Long term goal: Develop my own software (company)

Short term goal: Get a job that involves coding/programming

Current status: Support Analyst (at a software company but does not involve any programming) with 40k salary, 3rd year computer engineering student

I had everything figured out. I'm going to develop a 2D scrolling game for iphone or android, publish the app, sell a bunch, and then apply at a studios as a software developer.

And then something hit me. I think I need to get a job that involes programming to learn as much as I can in the shortest time possible. So I got a phone interview at a fast growing start up software company, passed that no problem, but then had to take an online technical assessment. That failed miserably. I thought that if I could just present myself, show that I am hard working, positive attitude, eager to make self improvements, type of a guy, I could get the job. I was wrong.

And now, I am lost.

Im thinking of staying with my job until I find a new one as a programmer. I will be working, self studying, and trying to make this happen without finishing university.

I forgot to mention that the online technical assessment was based on data structures/algorithms, OO design, runtime complexity.

I was hoping that I could get some guidence. Should I be focusing on app development or study computer science fundamentals? I have a list of books I can be going through: Learning C# O'Reilly (I got interested in C# because of Unity3D and Mono), C# 5.0 in a Nutshell, Head First Design Patterns, Code Complete, Introduction to Algorithms, Programming Interviews Exposed, Cracking the Coding Interview, The Google Resume.