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[Nix]

This book is pretty good to get started with: http://www.amazon.com/C-Programming-Larry-Ullman/dp/032135656X

[Garydos]

Thanks for all the suggestions but it looks like I'm going to try out that learncpp site first.

[Richard Kain]

C++ can be a little difficult for learning as a first language. The up-side of that approach is that once you are proficient at C++, most other languages are going to seem like a walk in the park. The real challenge in C++ is how long it takes for you to actually start putting things on the screen. You're going to be playing around in the console for a while. And you would never want to write all of your drawing code yourself.

Of course, there are also a lot of positives to learning C++, and a lot of them apply to game development. C++ is easily one of the most cross-platform friendly languages out there. You can code for pretty much any operating system or console using C++. Libraries produced using C++ can be ported just about anywhere. Then there is also the numerous existing libraries and tools designed for C++.

I would recommend that you learn some of the basics of C++, and then start using some C++ libraries/frameworks so that you can jump ahead to game-specific coding. SFML is considered one of the better ones. SDL is very standard, but probably doesn't have quite as good support for hardware acceleration. If you feel ambitious enough, you can try using OpenGL for your drawing. Set an orthographic projection and OpenGL becomes just fine for 2D graphics. You might also want to look into using Box2D. This is a fairly effective and efficient physics/collisions engine written in C++. You could combine Box2D with OpenGL to make a fairly basic platforming engine.

[HyperNexus]

I have to agree with LemonScented and say that you should start with C. As mentioned do check out The C Programming Language. I personally didn't use it to learn C but it's recommended so often that it must be doing something right.

If you want to learn C++ for games programming then you can either use a book on straight C++ or one that mixes in game development. When looking into the latter it would be wise to note whether the book is Windows centric(DirectDraw, etc) or more cross platform related(OpenGL, SDL, etc). Most of these books are very similar in terms of quality. I'd suggest just looking through them and picking one up you can best relate to.

If you wanted to pick up a book on straight C++ then there are several choices. Accelerated C++ is a pragmatic book that is more example driven. Unlike other programming books, it teaches the most useful concepts earlier on. So you can start writing programs sooner. I'd recommend it.

I'd urge you to look into later looking into The C++ Programming Language. It is a fantastic reference book but is way too detailed for new comers. After that it would be worth looking into the Effective C++ books as they'll help you sharpen the saw.

[Brother Android]

This is the book I used when I was starting out, and I found it very clear, simple, and readable (and accurate, of course, I've got a feeling inaccurate programming textbooks don't last long): http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Out-Early-Objects-6th/dp/0321512383

If you buy it used it should be a lot less expensive than that.

I'm reading The C Programming Language right now for a C-based class, and it's great - the perfect marriage of concision and detail - but it is C, which is not C++.