Hey everyone! I have always wanted to be part of designing a game, and recently I have realized that my favorite gaming genre, business and tycoon games, hasn't had the same punch since the early 2000s. I noticed that I have played those old games to death and want a new experience, but can't find anything as detailed. I have decided that I want to design my own business simulation game, with complexity and details rarely, if ever, included. I want to make the Dwarf Fortress or Aurora 4x version of a business simulation. Here's the problem: I have never designed a game before and have minimal programming experience. I am willing, however, to learn and take as long as I need to complete the game, whether that be years (minimum) or more likely a decade or two. The vision I have in mind is mostly text based. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a programming language I could use. For reference, I want to create a game similar to (but more complex) Capitalism Lab or Capitalism II minus the graphics. All decisions on purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, hiring, etc would come from a centralized menu with different icons to click on that would bring you to the appropriate screen. Does anyone know of a programming language that could suit this style? Thanks in advance!

I would recommend Python. Compact, powerful, good design, good documentation, and a friendly large community. It invites to doing hands-on learning, experimenting.

Also, don't start with your dream game, start much, much, much! simpler. Hang man could be one step, then perhaps a small text adventure or so. All games using the keyboard for text input.

Clicking could be a next step with using pygame, which is plenty fast enough for user interfaces.