Sometimes the C solution is made more complex because of its limitations w.r.t. what is included in the standard library and semantics such as RAII. And you ca

Sometimes the C solution is made more complex because of its limitations w.r.t. what is included in the standard library and semantics such as RAII. And you can write C++ without using more than 10-15% of the language's features, so the language's potential complexity doesn't force program complexity. That said, either choice is fine, you will likely benefit from choosing C or C++. In both cases, I would recommend SDL as a library for accessing basic graphics rendering and file loading functionality, as well as other game features like controllers and other input devices. It is platform dependent and has been around for quite some time. An alternative useful library/framework (mostly for how widely it has been used in existing projects), is Tcl/Tk. It's not the simplest in design but it is quite capable and doesn't try to do too much more than provide 2D rendering, UI toolkit and basic input.