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?

SDL, as I understand it, is hardware accelerated, and has been for the last year or so. It will, however, fallback to software for anything not being reported as doable by the hardware. You can also extend it with OpenGL. For a simple game, assuming relatively modern hardware, graphics acceleration shouldn't be a big deal anyway. Just my two cents, best of luck OP.