does anyone remember 1942 I am going to make a game like space invaders only using planes and a vertical side scroller.

1942 is not a very simple game. Take something you can finish in a considerable timeframe, like couple of days or something. Add a title screen, options etc. Then polish it and move on to something slighty more advanced. See how long that takes.

Work with what you know already, constantly exploring new terrain doesn't get you anywhere. People might also be able to help you better if you stuck with one subject.

ok do you  have any ideas for me?

Also, pick a graphics library. Messing around with raw OpenGL only makes things difficult. Perhaps SDL/SFML or something would suit your needs.

Seconding @Prototype's and @Tom Sloper's comments. If you start with making your end state game on day 1, realistically, you'll do a poorer job of it than if that game is your second or subsequent game.

by picking a simpler game, almost of any type you reduce the amount of stuff that's needed to learn before you can achieve something. Aiming to do 3D graphics on day 1 etc (not that you're intending to) is going to add frustrations. If you're using DX, then the DirectX Toolkit simplifies the presentation of 2D images etc. Once you've got something on screen, then it becomes so much more motivating to improve it!

Starting ideas for games:

* Mr E clones
* space invaders
* pacman
* Repton (maybe that as game #2 as well as showing my age!! )

Personally, I came back into game making after ~20 years out and then decided to write my dream game. That was a mistake. It took a lot longer than it would have done than if I had followed the advice above as I ended up losing motivation due to the time it took to achieve something on screen.

Main thing though... enjoy it!

3 minutes ago, fleabay said:

What is Mr E?? The only thing I could find related to games were a couple of YouTubers that was using that as short for mystery (Mr E-Game, cringe).

Hmmm Google doesn't appear to be much use here. I'll do some searching to see what I can find.

It was a 2D game where, if I remember correctly, you had to collect cherries and could drop apples on the end of the aliens chasing you

Turns out that it was called 'Mr EE' ?

YouTube

Just now, fleabay said:

Mr. Do, lol

hahahahaha - I guess this shows that we played the same game but on different machines ?