King of Herrings

I see a Gollum-like child, laughing, riding on the back of a happily grinning woman. They other guy on the left is also happy about something. I think it's a good sketch, reminiscent of an Aphex Twin universe.

Having been (not too long ago) in the almost exact same situation as you I would strongly suggest you do as Xai recommended: Visual Studio C# Express and XNA 4.0.

I too used to make games (or rather start projects) in Amos, QBasic and BlitzBasic 3D. (Who can forget classics like: Monster Maze - well, I only drew the graphics (I've come a long way)... and still wondering who uploaded that video).

Then after a long abscence I started to find my way back to game development. I tried some C++ with DirectX but only found myself getting bogged down by the complexity.

Now with C# and XNA I can get results fairly quickly. The biggest problem is being a one man army, which I think is problem many of us here on Gamedev have when it comes to our projects.

tl;dr: See first line!