Question on what language to study
 

Okay, so I have a series of ideas in my head, and quite a few take on the idea of telling a story through interaction, or are in mediums not really possible with a book. Examples being:

1) a mix between Diablo isometrics/battle and some Visual Novels...with puzzles (visual, audio, kinetic) and some stuff you see in text based adventures.
2) a dichotomous key style approach to looking up words that teaches the mechanics of languages with them (not a game, but a tool for people)
3) a cross between Strategy, RPG, and FPS - sort of a cross between Telltale Games, Guns of Icarus, and Battlefield 2142 (I doubt I could actually pull this one off...just the idea of how maintaining defense/responding to bomb threats and all would look if humanity colonized our solar system)

Et Cetera

Now, I know Flash, played with NWNscript (modified Javascript), modded a game or two (simple mods), learned real simple Python (VPython for Physics) and took an introduction to C++ course...but beyond the basics, I am clueless. For example, I don't know how code creates and calls upon images. And, I have been a bit slow/less than I could be due to depression and other issues.

So...any advice on what engines or languages would be helpful or what to do? Help?

Javascript will take you a long way these days. In addition to being available in web browsers with tons of tools available for it, it's one of the languages supported by Unity, which is a popular game engine. And given your experience with ActionScript and NWNscript, you should find it familiar.

If you like Python, Unity supports a dialect of that.

C# is a possible choice; it's the best choice for large-scale Unity work, but its portability outside of Unity on non-Windows computers is limited.

C++ is my personal favorite language, and it can interface with a LOT of stuff, but it's also more work -- it's NOT a rapid-prototyping language like Python, and it doesn't have an all-in-one solution like Unity. But on the other hand, it's also the fastest option available to you once you DO get something working, and it lets you work with things like Unreal Engine.

So, Javascript looks like a good place to start, and I have to keep working on Python for classes.
Thanks!