Even Monopoly is quite complicated, if you figure all the necessary rules to do it. I would say, forget about graphics at this point. Do something simple with basic Windows forms ... C# may have some more overhead, Visual Basic is easier to pick up. Either of them will do enough without too much complication. It's good you have a project to tackle though. It makes easier to have a goal. I wouldn't tackle pure C/C++/Java (or DirectX, XNA, etc) just yet. You learn a lot, but you may get bored or trip over the complicated stuff.