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Start with something small, like a puzzle game. They aren't sexy, but they are doable in your time frame. The game mechanics for things like tetris or minesweeper are pretty easy to understand, which will allow you to spend more time focusing on other things like the basic inner-workings of a game, how do sound engines work, how to best utilize graphics libraries, etc. Plus with puzzle games your need for hitting 100 frames per second is reduced.

The biggest mistake I have seen people make is they want to build a FPS or a RTS as their first game and they get so bogged down in artwork, tweaking frame rates, AI, etc. that they finally just give up. I almost fell to the same mistake. I thought "turn based strategy game, how hard could that be." It took two years of late night work to get PocketWar to the point it's at today, and many times I wish I had started with something simpler.

Almost all games are written in C++ so if you are looking for experience to apply toward the future break down and learn it. As most the post above say, SDL is also a wonderful thing. There are tons of samples on the net that you can use as references.

Pocket War is a great game if you like old school turn based strategy games.

It has very large randomly generated maps that take forever to beat, and even better the core of the product is written in a javascript like language that is exposed so its really easy to add new units, AIs, etc. It even comes with script documentation and sample files showing how to make your own mods.

It runs on Pocket PCs and Windows and you can sync games back and forth between to the two for continued play on the go. I've really enjoyed it. It looks like the whole company that makes it though is run by a single person.

I write Pocket War a Pocket PC based war game so, I have some experience here.

The portable game market (exclude GBA for the moment) is not big enough right now to support a real company. The titles price points are low as well as the number of sales. There are discussions about this on Pocket Gamer, in my forums and at Gamespot.

GBA is a different beast but it also requires more money to participate on that platform.

Having said that I still love writing games for these platforms and maybe they will come into their own one day.

I write Pocket War a Pocket PC based war game so, I have some experience here.

The portable game market (exclude GBA for the moment) is not big enough right now to support a real company. The titles price points are low as well as the number of sales. There are discussions about this on Pocket Gamer, in my forums and at Gamespot.

GBA is a different beast but it also requires more money to participate on that platform.

Having said that I still love writing games for these platforms and maybe they will come into their own one day.

Look at the SIMS. You don't need blood and gore to have a VERY successful game. Of course having said that, I did write Pocket War a umm, well, er... war game.