I'm not quite as far along as Kayla, I'm sure (I haven't even made anything decent yet!), but I might still be worth listening to.
Toolkits and such weren't satisfying to me. I don't know why, never even looked at the stuff, I just wanted to learn more about computers instead of just about designing games. So don't listen to me if you decide to use them.
Starting with an existing engine might work out, but it's my opinion that knowing how things work through programming experience can't hurt. I doubt that they have a manual to tell you exactly what to do to produce new games with their software. But I could be wrong.
Plus, if you know how to make a game engine, you could just modify an open source engine for your game instead. It might save work or it might add more work, depending on what you're trying to do.
So I like just programming from scratch. It might be like trying to re-invent the wheel, but not in the sense that it's all for nothing. I can learn new stuff and add features as I understand how they really work instead of fumbling around all the time.
And I think that typical game developers are kind of dumb. But that's another story.
I used to think it was impossible to program a game, like there weren't any resources to teach me anything out there anywhere (Only geniuses ever do it! Geniuses who can read those 500 page technical books and absorb everything in them), but now I can look around and find a ton of stuff lying around for game development on the internet.
gpwiki.org
cprogramming.com has a forum with a game development section (they're very helpful if you're describing trouble and not just asking them to write code for you). But it is directed toward C when other choices are probably better to start with. It would be easy to find something similar for Python or whatever else you chose.
roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org This might not be the kind of game you're trying to make, but meh.
Oh, and, the rest of the site is questionable, but this one is interesting to look at: kuro5hin?
Some people say that making games is more fun than playing them, but I haven't quite gotten to that point yet.
Oh, and you'll probably hear this a thousand times, but still, it doesn't happen overnight, which is the main disadvantage of learning how to program things. It's kind of all-in or nothing. I'm a few years in and expecting many more.
I took a few classes about it in college recently and I have to admit it really helps. I guess there could be bad teachers, but most students in those classes didn't really try to understand at all. It's a major requirement to them, not something cool.
But it is fun and worthwhile, I think. More frustrating when things aren't working out and more rewarding when they do.
[ January 09, 2008: Message edited by: nerdpride ]