I have been piddling with my first game for quite a while now.

I have been an application developer for years, and I have always believed in the existence of what I call the "throwaway point." The Throwaway Point is where you have x% of the functionality complete, then all of a sudden you gain a new understanding of what you're trying to do, throw nearly everything away, and start over. The next iteration only takes a fraction of the time to get back to that same X% of functionality.

My personal throwaway point is around 70% or so for apps. I usually only have one throwaaway point, then I can complete it from there.

Games are a WHOLE different ballgame, at least for me. My throwaway point comes rapidly, and I have several. I don't think it's a bad thing. Every time it happens, code gets cleaner (and usually smaller) and ideas get tighter and better cemented in my head.

So I guess my advice is: don't give up. Stop for a few days, rethink your design. If a library (dX) isn't doing what you want, try another one. I prefer SDL for it's ease of use. If you're the sort of person who wants a LOT of documentation, you won't find it there. I look at the docs for quick stuff like "what does this return again?"

I agree with bmarci to a point. Writing everything from the ground up means you LEARN a lot more. SDL / Allegro and the like to me are happy mediums. You don't have to dicker about with a lot of really low-level code, but they don't hold your hand either. I can't speak for Ogre, as I've enver used it.

Good luck, man, and keep hammering at it.