Beginning To Program, Making 2D Games?

If you are new to programming and looking for a good language to start. That's not too hard to learn and makes you see progress fast to stay motivated.

How To Start?

Programming Languages such as C# , Java , C , C++ , Objective-C would grant you what you want, there are other factors to take into consideration when learning one of these languages , such as performance (speed) , GUI , etc. Some languages are relatively more powerful than the other. It's best for you to narrow down what you really want to achieve and then select the appropriate language you feel would fit the bill.

You starting out with a scripting language like Lua & a game engine like Love2D for 2D games.

http://love2d.org/

Scripting languages don't have many gotchas & they are easier to pick up than a full blown programming language. Also Lua is widely used in the games industry, because it is very easy to embed, is fast & has a small runtime.

Then when you're more experienced, move on to programming languages such as C++/C# (Java IF you wish to do Android, Objective C if you want to do iOS).

If you want I've heard good things about this 2D game engine based in Lua for Android & iOS.

http://www.anscamobile.com/pricing/whysubscribe.html

Also learning ActionScript 3 instead of ActionScript 2. ActionScript 2 is heavily outdated and doesn't make use of all the improvements in the latest versions of Flash Player.

Learning ActionScript 3 is the better option.

http://tiffanybbrown.com/2010/08/23/why-actionscript-3-0-should-be-your-first-programming-language 

Beginning To Program, Making 2D Games?