t3hPoundcake

Not OP, obviously, but I also make games. The first thing you have to come to terms with is that your first idea, no matter how great it may be, will with 99% certainty never be made, at least not by you. The second thing you have to understand is that even simple games, for indie developers with no team, doing everything themselves, will usually take at least a year of development to finish, or even get to beta stage. Yes you see people do 48 hour game jams but they are experienced and their ideas are obviously specifically designed to be created in that time limit. A couple levels, hard coded everything, cheap art and story - never aimed at making a profit.

If you're okay with all of that stuff, you have a couple choices on where to start based on your desired effort level and what kind of game you're making. For 3d stuff you can use Unity or Unreal. They use C# and C++ respectively, although Unreal has a blueprint system that allows for visual scripting with simple node connections, but still requires logical programmatic thought processes to understand. Your other big option is for mainly 2d games with GameMaker Studio. It has it's own language based on C++ and it's quite easy to learn, but also has a visual drag and drop system.

Before you do anything, I recommend writing a design document for your idea - this includes things like a summary of the game, a list of core mechanics you want, design notes like camera style, movement style, ideas for your hud, weapons, enemies, etc. and then it helps to write a short section about what problems you can foresee running into so you can actively think about how to change or fix them as you're working.

Some things you'll have to learn regardless of what kind of game you're making is some kind of art program. Photoshop is overkill in my opinion, go with paint.net or GIMP for making your textures and graphics. Opengameart.org has some okay stuff that you can use for free provided you give credit.

Personally I recommend Unity. C# is fucking easy to learn, and when you pair development with Visual Studio to write your code, it basically tells you what to write - and the documentation for Unity is really REALLY good. You can use Unity for 2d or 3d games really easily.

I use Phantom a lot and never had many issues, other than the overall cost being almost twice that of other stands like American Fireworks. American usually offers a deal "buy one, get 2 free" or "pay 1/3 your total cost" at checkout on the 3rd. The rest of the year I believe they do buy one get one. The only one I know of personally is in Niles, OH but I'm sure they are other place.s

Ouch. You already poked him with the blade you might as well finish him off haha. The wording on that is so ruthless yet so kind.

Is there a way to reliably tell if any given mushroom is safe to eat? So like is there one feature all poisonous mushrooms have in common, or is this something you need to study years and perfect and even then might have a chance getting wrong?

The pop-up "limited time only" kind of places use their stock to sell to other events I'm sure, the 4th isn't he only holiday that people buy fireworks for. Other stores are open year round.