man...looking back at these i'm amazed how good it all looks with the limits they had

this place might answer some of your questions
http://jharbour.com/

the Game Dev tutorials are about programming for the GBA, which is in C & assembly. so maybe it will be a little more familiar territory for you
you can always go to gamedev.net of course & read up one what game designing is & the process invovled...it really hasn't changed much since the old days, just that you have many more people involved in the process for a 3D game

as for a language to choose, it may seem like a chore (& it is) but learning a higher level language is best if you're making games. they've recommended some really good ones here, like Python & Ruby...Flash is another avenue you could try, it's basically an "any idiot can do it" language. & if you don't believe me do a search in the search engine of your choice for flash games & you will see that many idiots are doing it!! (& that's not an insult)