Betsy Aoki a girl with no knowledge of C# programming or much game programming, sites down creates a very simple game in 4 easy steps and blogs about it along the way.

Great way to start learning to program a game. All the tools she uses are free. Interested? Check it out:

Part 1 she creates a fish bouncing around on the screen: blogs.msdn.com/betsya/archive/2007/12/26/my-first- prite-the-bouncing-cod.aspx

Part 2 she makes the fish collide with things: http://blogs.msdn.com/betsya/archive/2008/02/09/ma ing-an-xna-game-when-cods-collide-1.aspx

Part 3 she learns about sprite motion and collision detection: http://blogs.msdn.com/betsya/archive/2008/02/09 making-an-xna-game-when-cods-collide-2.aspx

Part 4 she puts it all together and finishes the simple game: http://blogs.msdn.com/betsya/archive/2008/02/10/maki g-a-2d-xna-game-when-cods-collide-part-3.aspx

Great way to learn, and it's all using free tools. Check it out!