Hey. I've been coding with python off and on for a few months, and I believe I'm ready for a graphical game, as I've just been making text based games. I always try booting up PyGame, copy and paste in a few lines of code, edit it, make a basic polygon, try to figure out how to make that polygon move, and then give up. I can never get the motivation, and I can never get the correct library, or engine, or whatever it is.. I'm also semi-experienced in Lua coding. Any recommendations on motivations, libraries,and what-not?

What do you mean by "I can never get the correct library"? What exactly is your motivation issue? Are you having issues where your progress is slower than you want and you get bored and/or frustrated?

You could always try jumping into a game engine like Unity instead of doing all the nitty gritty yourself and see if that helps your motivation.

It's also possible that you just don't really enjoy programming games though. If you don't enjoy it, maybe you need to find another hobby. A lot of people want to make their own games, but don't actually want to put in the years of effort it takes to work through the basics first.

Have you considered GameMaker Studio? You can jump in and start using it immediately, and then learn the scripting language behind the scenes to do more advanced things as needed.

That said, jumping between tools, libraries, and languages prevents people from going deep and really learning them. Whatever you decide to use, you should commit yourself to sticking with it for a year or two, before allowing yourself to switch to something else.

Do you enjoy programming? If not, maybe you'd rather just make levels for existing games by 'modding' them. Half Life 2's level editor is fun to play with, if you're just looking to entertain yourself.

If you're looking to really learn programming, and really make games, then you should stick with Python and find a tutorial that walks you through the structure of simple games like Tetris, and then start small with things like a (really basic) side scroller or adventure game, with really basic features.

I'd secong using Gamemaker Studio. If you really want to create a game. Start with the Graphical programming language then move onto scripting. You can then carry the techniques that you learn onto other programming languages / tools.

I feel like Gamemaker is too basic for me, and it just seems lacking. I can't get pygame to install correctly, so I can't learn that.. I'm learning web development with codecademy, but I cannot really make what I'm looking for with PHP or JavaScript. I have no idea what to use.. but I think I'm at the point now that I be dedicated to programming.

I don't really think I want to learn what people call the hardest stuff such as c and c++, but from what I see Lua and Python are CLI-only without any library such as PyGame or LOVE2D. I'm looking to build on a GUI instead of CLI, as I've exhausted my ideas with CLI games on Python..

So confused ;/

Edit: And I've also heard Java is slow as heck

You never know for sure if you don't try. I feel the same about gamemaker, it seems too basic, but then I see what various other people (even studios, check out Vlambeer for example) do with it, and all I can say is: I probably haven't done enough with it to say it's too basic.

I don't feel the need to try anymore because I found my own way, but I think you can get some good stuff working if you at least put some effort in it.

Fact is, you will always find flaws in every engine/library that make you search for the one without them. You simply need to find the one with the flaws you can work with.

Last tip that might help you, as Cardinal already mentioned. Try using Unity. It's more hands on than most aspects of gamemaker (probably) and you can make some nice (simple) stuff with it without putting in a lot effort. Obviously the more advanced you want to go, the harder it gets, but that's not exclusive to unity :)

Good luck!