I'm looking to make a game using the dreaded concept of graphics... Only I have no idea where to start. I can't seem to get SDL working with my compiler (Dev cpp right now, cause I'm stuck on windows).

Anyone have a good SDK to use (free hopefully) or any advice on the subject? Thanks!

There's a really good one that my school's game development club uses, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. I'm not sure if it's free or not, but I think it is. I'll ask one of them later about it when spring break is over.

Ooh, thanks. I'm just looking for very basic functionality - primitives and bitmaps is all I _really_ need.

Wow, I just went to a IGDA meeting tonight and won a book on this very subject in the raffle.. tommorow I'll open up the book and see if there is anything helpfull in it to tell you.

Don't know about SDKs, but OpenGL and DirectX (I think) are the two main graphics systems used out there for that kind of thing. For Windows, I think DirectX has better support and implementation, and the libraries are already there in the system, so give that a shot.

Open GL and directx are both scary beyond belief.
I've got GL on my computer, but I want to do basic 2D grahics... As for Directdraw, after spending two hours looking for somewhere to download the SDK, I sort of gave up.

I don't know much about DirectX, so I can't really say much there. OpenGL is complex, but using GLU and GLUT will probably simplify using it a lot, since most of the primitives are in there, and then you can avoid dealing with most of the nitty gritty GL stuff. About the only exception is bliting bitmaps, and that's a single command in OpenGL. Gets a little more complicated if you want to have transparency and the like I think, but that'll add complexity to pretty much anything.

For Windows games I've always used the DirectX SDK, you can do 2D with it if you want, though personally I work in 3D. I've never used any graphical interfaces other than Windows Forms and DirectX renders.

i know a really good program for making games: it's called gamemaker.http://www.gamemaker.nl/index.html
it's really really simple, so it's probably not something you'd be interested in, but i find it really good cause the only program language that i'm really good at is quickbasic
although if you're looking to make a simple game this's probably a good one to use for making it. it's got a whole bunch of places to code things but i haven't spent any time to figure it out.

There's several really good options available for making games but they each have to do with your level of comfort.

My first suggestion is to lookup OpenGL. OpenGL is a library for graphics development that is extremely well documented and widely used in many games. You've probably played games that use it and you don't even know it. It's also free, you simply compile your program using the OpenGL bindings.

You can also use DirectX which is specifically for windows games. OpenGL will run cross-platform meaning it is much more friendly for MacOSX, Linux and Wndows machines.

So we've covered libraries (briefly), now onto engines. Check out www.ogre3d.com - That is an example of a fully developed (open source) graphics engine. You can develop games using it as your foundation and you'll have all kinds of physics functionalities already done for you (such as collisions, gravity, etc).

If you're looking for a super-simple game, check out gamedev tutorials on the internet. There's tons.

Summary:
OpenGL
DirectX
Engines
- Ogre3d