The New Boston is... well... retarded. It is very informative, but it is only helpful if you already know other programming languages, not for starting out. I would recommend never taking Visual Basic.net beyond the classroom, I find it a useless non-portable toy in Microsoft's pocket. I learned programming by reading about C++, and as I learned about it, I really thought that the C part of C++ was much more straightforward in its functional/procedural programming syle than C++'s OOP model, and I decided to migrate to C. I like it better because it is more standardized, reaches more platforms easier, has a more even code to binary ratio that is between 2:1 and 1:1 on efficient compilers, systems, and code. C++ is by no means slow at all. Some of the highest performance applications can be written in C++. On today's modern processors, even the minute speed/performance advantage of C over C++ makes no difference. Whatsoever. So what if C++ adds a few extra bytes? WE HAVE ALMOST 4 GHZ OF PROCESSING SPEED AND MULTIPLE CORES. What really disappointed me in this post was why you are interested. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make a PC game (it is extremely hard, and unless you are always on a constant working weekend marathon, you will NEVER get anything done.), but it seems kids aren't interested in regular programming for regular reasons (business, drivers, hardware design) anymore. I guess that's just another product of the GUI and how you don't need to write your own drivers or mount hard drives or use the terminal to use a computer anymore, and five year olds can pick it up because computers and phones have cute "user friendly" atmospheres and interfaces nowadays. I am in the midst of creating an architectural raytracer and I am implementing the whole thing in ANSI C (frame buffer elements and GLSL elements are done with GLUT), so I can just tote the source code over to Mac, Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc. recompile, and I have myself a cross-platform software. If you want to learn C++, there is an ebook here: http://newdata.box.sk/bx/c . If you want to learn C, the best book is called "The C Programming Language" by primary creator Dennis Ritchie and Brian W. Khernigan. If you can't afford the book, there is always the shady bit torrent side of things, but I think The Pirate Bay was blocked in the U.K. I'm not sure if that has taken place yet. But definitely buy it if you can and support the authors. As an indie game developer myself, I can say that since you are only 13, you may not have a finished product until around 15 to 16, and if you work on a game, you won't have time for TV, video games, friends, or sports. Not that you aren't capable or it would take a deathly amount of time, but you just haven't had the experience in mathematics and science to deal with the many problems that arise during game development, and unlike other things, its not something you learn as you go, because you don't know what to learn if you do that. You also have to have a realistic goal. You can't make something like CoD or Skyrim or WoW in a first try, and if you had the know-how, you would still be limited by everyone's nemesis: time. It is very hard to find with kids your age, but try to find a partner. The reason I say its hard to find a partner that is your peer is because most kids are just interested in the glamour of game design and game programming, and won't stick around or give a rats *** about the work behind the scenes or computers in general. One general rule to go by is that you will ALWAYS underestimate the work you'll have to do, even when you factor in how you will underestimate it. But as advice for the future, games are not a career, art, or an industry. They are a software HOBBY, always will be, and are a part of the software industry.
I would rather write a basic game in C from the ground up in a year, rather than make a flashy game with something like Unity and C# in 6 months. If you try it, you will see why. Cheers from America.