1) If you want to learn to program. Learn how to program. Don't worry about games, or engines. Start small with non-game stuff. Get competent and make some commandline games like tic-tac-toe, hangman, guess-the-number, Zork. NetHack. Just get a handle for programming. Honestly, I recommend CS courses to teach you the basics of data structures and algorithms at the bare minimum. Once you understand programming, it shouldn't be a hard leap to pick up graphics libraries and start making 2d games.

2) Don't make an engine, make games. Until you know what you need to make a game, you don't know what you need to make an engine. Engines are the byproduct of programmers who've made many games and distilled down the core elements they've used over-and-over. Until you understand what those parts are, use someone else's engine, or just go straight for making the game you want. You can make Tetris with something like SDL or PyGame or XNA rather easily without worrying about how perfect and professional your code is. You can learn all the things that are part of Tetris and all the parts that could be re-used to make Breakout. Those re-usable parts are your first engine.

3) But one of the most common suggestions is once you know how to program, skip the hard and repetitive programming all together. Pick up a tool like unity and make tetris or mario or astroids in Unity. Unity takes care of all the little details you don't really need to know (like how to load a model or texture), and gives you a chance to work on just the code that defines the interactions that make the game. You still need to know basic programming, but it takes care of boilerplate code that would take you a significant amount of time to write.

3) But one of the most common suggestions is once you know how to program, skip the hard and repetitive programming all together. Pick up a tool like unity and make tetris or mario or astroids in Unity. Unity takes care of all the little details you don't really need to know (like how to load a model or texture), and gives you a chance to work on just the code that defines the interactions that make the game. You still need to know basic programming, but it takes care of boilerplate code that would take you a significant amount of time to write.

Strongly recommend running through the tutorials for Unity, they go quite deep and give you a really good idea of what it takes to build a game.

Ohhhhh havent done this in a while....

Read me

It pretty much answers every question you are asking and sends you in the direction to hopefully answer the next dozen you will have.

Ohhhhh havent done this in a while....

Read me

It pretty much answers every question you are asking and sends you in the direction to hopefully answer the next dozen you will have.

So that article (which is great) says this:

I know, of course, that you are going to completely disregard this advice and start with C++, but in 3 or 4 years when you’ve got the scars and trauma from ignoring my advice, I’m going to smugly *tisk tisk* and give you my best “I told you so!”. I will offer another piece of advice while I am at it… anyone that recommends you start with C++, in the future ignore their advice!

I learned how to program in the 90s using C++. While now that I know it, everything is easy, I would love to go back in time and smack myself in the head and then try python, or even BASIC.

Ohhhhh havent done this in a while....

Read me

It pretty much answers every question you are asking and sends you in the direction to hopefully answer the next dozen you will have.

So that article (which is great) says this:

I know, of course, that you are going to completely disregard this advice and start with C++, but in 3 or 4 years when you’ve got the scars and trauma from ignoring my advice, I’m going to smugly *tisk tisk* and give you my best “I told you so!”. I will offer another piece of advice while I am at it… anyone that recommends you start with C++, in the future ignore their advice!

I learned how to program in the 90s using C++. While now that I know it, everything is easy, I would love to go back in time and smack myself in the head and then try python, or even BASIC.

I started with a bit of Basic and Pascal in school, then was handed a copy of the 1st Edition K&R at a job working for CECOM (I've still got the book :) ) and told to learn C over the weekend so I could start programming. There's something to be said for being thrown into the deep end of the pool.

As for the other stuff - If you want to learn to code, learn to code. If you want to make games, make games. Making a game engine is completely out of your reach right now, both from a technical (you don't know how to code well enough) and a design (you don't know what to code) standpoint. It's the coding equivalent of "I'm going to make my first game an MMO". Don't neglect other skills: learn to write effectively.

Unity's a good engine to start with. There are others - do your homework, look around the internet and see what you can find. Don't worry about whether other people think it's 'too simple' or not cool enough, or whatever. If you think you can use it to make the game you want to make, use it. The worst that happens is you get in over your head, or don't succeed for whatever reason, and you've hopefully learned a lot in the process.

Devmaster.net lists 365 game engines when I just checked. Most won't do what you want or will require more skill than you have.

Find the 'complete' and 'simple' ones and start from there.