Hi Pete,
Newbie to the forum here but thought I’d respond. The first thing I’d say is if you want advice on how to proceed, you could do with laying out the general details of your intended game.
Depending on its simplicity, are you determined to become a programmer in the process or not? With the variety of game engines on offer nowadays, it’s possible to make a simple game with virtually no programming knowledge (i’d recommend something like 3DRAD for this, google it).
If you’re determined to learn to program, I’d recommend starting with XNA (Riemers tutorials are a good place to start). The framework is incredibly user-friendly and well documened. It’s also a good step in the direction of C++, if that’s where you ultimately want to end up.