Well I've got a little idea running around in my brain about a cool 2d game...and I've been told that you can't just go sell the idea to someone.  They say that you're better off getting into the industry (which could take years)....or making the game yourself.  So I've decided to "try" the latter.

I know quite a few people around this site have pretty good knowledge of 3d/2d tools...

So does anyone know a good, relatively easy to use/learn 2d animation tool kit that I could learn without a degree in computer science.

I've been googling a couple different tool sets....and most cost around $100.  That's not that big of a deal for me...but I want to make sure I'm paying for something that someone with as little experience as I have could figure out.

So does anyone have any advice....regarding 2d dev tools....or game design in general?

You could look into the XNA framework. They take care of lots of things for you, and they offer a free engine for you as well. Takes some of the leg work out of the way.

I'm no game maker, but I used this:
http://www.yoyogames.com/make

There's a free demo that lets you make games, it's pretty much the whole thing with out the ability to make exe's in the demo.

I was checking out the yoyo games....looks interesting.

I guess I just have to dl a bunch of programs and see which one works best...or if I can even figure them out. Should be fun.

I agree with XNA. Also it'll allow you to upload to the 360 users on this site. I can't vouch for how user friendly it is though.

Go with Visual Boy Advance and HAM

Links would be appreciated. I've started tooling around with yoyo. As with all these programs they certainly have a steep learning curve...but I'm sure once you get going they're quite simple.

I tried to make sense of the terms of usage for yoyo....

Does yoyo claim rights and patents for anything you create while you make the game?

sweet, you could use people on these forums to test your ideas

(1) The official tutorials and forums are very good.

http://www.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials

It had me up in running a game in a few minutes.

There are a bunch of other resources too, sprites, music, sounds, and alot of sample games.

(2) Yoyo makes none of those claims but if you want to make distributable content then you need to buy the full version.

you could always buy the game on Playstation 1 and 2 called RPG maker.

its a game...in which...you make a game...and then can play your creation