Game development?

I get my way thru anything web based these days, but i still have never written antyhing that runs on a windows platform. I've been having a strong urge to do so. Does anyone know a good place to start? There is just a huge void in my knowledge of how to get something to complile for windows etc.

Moving foward i'd like to clearn how to create a game like monkey island 1 or 2 or any of those old lucas art games

Not nessicarily make the game .. but understand how it is put together if i HAD TO

peace
WILLY

Yea, I'd be interested in finding a starting place as well..any idea's??

If you know perl its possible to compile .pl files into EXEs if you have the correct perl modules. You need PAR, and a couple of others I can't remember right now.

From a dos prompt you type:

pp -o program.exe thing.pl

a few other ideas:
RealBasic http://realbasic.com/realbasic/index.php - better and easier to learn than VB - really easy to use, and makes powerful apps as well. Download a demo if you want.

You could also go out and buy a copy of a C++ development environment from Borland or microshaft, but that's only if you want to be a hardcore coder.

One more idea: There is a prog I found a while ago for building games. It's called game maker, and can be found at this address:
http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/

steep learning curve but very powerful prog.