I've been studying programming since I was 12, learning C++, python, C# , java , haskell and lua - now 18, I still have absolutely no idea how to program.

www.cprogramming.com is a great resource to start off. It teaches you the syntax of C++ which is the easiest part.

however it's STL , IPC , Multi-threading, OpenGL etc, is when it starts getting hard.

I don't think you'll ever stop learning in the software development scene.

But that why I love it so much.

GamePlay 3D

It's a new game engine "framework" written in c++ - with support for Android, Windows, Linux , iOS and Black Berry OS.

It's free and open source - the code is beautiful - use it - extend it - it's awesome.

here's the website :

www.gameplay3d.org

EDIT : Oh, and don't be a numpty - use Ubuntu. Windows is far to annoying for me personally. Then again, the reason I studied programming is primarily Linux, not game design - so I am a bit bias. (The OUYA has got my interest as of late :D)

"Normal" android development is done with Java. (Normal as in the official android SDK from Google is based around Java).

Since you will be learning it in school anyways, go with it, it is perfectly fine for game development.

Nowadays, choosing a language is less about the language itself, but the libraries and tools people have built around those languages.

For Java, a good library is libGDX, which is a wrapper for LWJGL.

It is for both 2D games(which you should start with) and 3D games.

libGDX is cross-platform, you can export to windows, android, iOS, or a webpage from one code base.

edit: I just noticed that David posted about libGDX too, but here's the links.

If you learn C++, you certainly wont regret it. IMO, I find it always looks more solid on a CV than most of the languages currently "trending". It shows that you understand that C++ isn't very hip and cool within the indie gamedev community but you have researched that it is the industry standard and have taken the initiative to learn it so that so you can get productive within a commercial company quickly.

As an aside, you can also use C++ for android development (without using commercial products such as Unity or Xamarin or rely on any other products with unacceptable DRM).

For resources, I really like the following

(OpenGL Tutorials) http://www.swiftless.com/opengltuts.html

(SDL Tutorials) http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/

(Book) The C++ Programming Language - Bjarne Stroustrup

I am totally convinced that most people new to game development should choose a game engine which fits their genre goal for games and their preferences, but some with no art abilities might want to consider an SDK instead like SharpDX, for example. After a game engine is selected, then focus on learning the main language of the engine and since you have programming experience in other languages, too, pick one for things like GUI creation and gameplay functions. You may need to learn a couple new languages for a certain development environment.

Now, that being said, there is a huge market for browser and/or hand-held mobile device games. Java programming coming soon for you and much of the experience of yours is very good for that area to get started.

Here is a list of game engines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

There are many game engines, rendering engines, SDKs, and coding libraries not on the above list, but this will give you something in your search.

I suggest that you go to the Android main gaming community website and related sites to read about what game engines or SDKs that they use.

Links:

Another similar topic here at gamedev... http://www.gamedev.net/topic/632323-android-game-development-where-should-i-start/

Android Developers site: http://developer.android.com/index.html

So, start with the main sources of information and research from there.

Have fun!

Language, smanguage, it doesn't matter which one you use. There are some considerations you need to make, though. First, for any type of calculation-intensive game, you should use a compiled language, not an interpreted language. Also, you might want to consider library availability. Libraries are mostly available in languages such as C or Java, but I've seen OpenGL bindings for compiled Haskell, so you'll probably be able to find something no matter where you go. It isn't 1989 anymore, so you can rest easy knowing that it is completely possible to write a full fledged 2D or even 3D game in languages like Java (Minecraft, anyone?) and Python (Pyglet). As far as myself goes, I use C. I know I should use C++, Java, or Python and all of that, but I never really did. Another point of interest, is that there was, the other day, a user on here who is creating a language call C-UP, and it has built in parallel SIMD data types and other goodies for games programming, and it is a full language, not an API. I haven't used it (yet), but it might be worth a shot to check it out.