Gaming in C++

Here's the deal, /prog/. Over the winter break, I have decided I want to practice and expand my skills, and as such, design a small applet type game using C++. Now, i am fluent in C++, and MFC, but MFC wouldn't exactly be ideal for this. I fully intend for the game to be 2D Sprite based.

What should I look into, what should I use, and how should I go about things? I've heard openGL would work well, is there anything else I ought to remain cognizant of?

>>13
I've done a couple of projects on the DS hardware, and to be honest, setting the shit up and figuring out the basics is a real pain in the ass. Once you get it up and running, it's a lot better (I never actually got the DS gdb stub working though, so debugging was a bitch and a half).

>>9,10,12
Well, I would argue that your definition of "language practice" is a bit too broad. I would classify algorithm design as language-agnostic; algorithm implementation is practice.

At the same time though, doing anything with a language is practice in itself.

If you really want to pick up some of what some people call the ``finer aspects'' of the language, then I'd recommend picking up a book like Modern C++ Design, Exceptional C++ (or any in that series), C++ Coding Standards, and C++ Metaprogramming Concepts. You'd be surprised how much shit you'll learn from reading that stuff (that you probably won't pick up from just winging it on your own).

Pretty soon you'll be winging around closures and shit and wonder why you're not using a language which actually has working features. lawds.