First learn a programming language. Maybe try an easy one like BASIC or Python at first. Get someone to do graphics for you, or download them from some graphics resources site. Then teach yourself the basics, perhaps with the help of some tutorial. Make clones of progressively more complex games. Start simple and small, build skills and then make more sophisticated things. Repeat.
Alternately, you can use some stupid program like GameMaker that does it automatically, but these are no fun, programming-wise anyway, and they impose their own pre-built model on you. Flash has the same problem. It's much better writing your own simple, clean loops and checks that move sprites around that having to set yourself to follow its stupid object-oriented/movie-scene/whatever model.
C++ is an industry standard and may be good to know, but please, don't drink the OOP kool-aid too much. OOP is not an absolute.
-- Young hobbyist wannabe game programmer
Name:
22012-08-15 19:06
Also, avoid complicated or otherwise excessively OOP-happy APIs and languages. Perhaps after reading some tutorials try to be creative, explore, etc. One good way to learn stuff is by trying to re-implement a game, trying to figure out and recreate how it works. Also, please do 2D games before you attempt 3D. 3D is much more complicated than 2D, especially with the newer OpenGL. You will probably learn a lot of important basic ideas from making 2D games, which you can then use in 3D game programming.
this stuff is taken from /vg/'s video game development general thread. I wouldn't suggest going there because most of the discussion is shit, but they have a good irc channel on freenode, #vidyadev