I know, you guys probably get this question a lot. But here goes anyway. I'm interested in getting into game development more than I have been thus far in my life, and making it a more pronounced hobby, and possibly in the future, making it more of a career. First off, my background. I'm a front end developer for websites and flash applications, some of which have been games. I have extensive experience in OOP usage, and I know PHP, &#106avascript, Actionscript 1-3, ASP extensively, and I have some knowledge of C (yes, that's right, C - I'm old), Java, and way back when I was writing games in BASIC and 6502 assembly. I am 41 and started writing games when I was 12 on Apple C's and Commodores. A lot has changed... I've been looking around the web, trying to figure out what route would be the best to way to start. I have reviewed pretty much all the major SDK's and dev systems: Dark, Blitz, DX Studio, Unity, XNA, C4, Torque, Leadwerks. I am not interested in jumping into a 3D engine however, I am wanting to start with a 2D style art house game, so I am leaning more towards XNA, Torque, Dark or Blitz. I don't want to start completely from the basics level. I have some understanding of how games works and are designed. So what I'm looking for is something to get started, but also something that I can stick with that I will continue to build upon. I'm looking for any recommendations. So, would XNA 3.0 with VSC# be a good starting point for me? Should I shoot lower, or higher? And also, any really good books out there that thoroughly cover game design and theory? Thanks for all your help!