Moving from console based programming into graphical 2D game development (Need advice)

[Attempted]

As the title suggests I am moving into using graphics, I have set up SDL 2.0 in codeblocks and have been following lazyfoo tutorials and a few loose videos on the internet.

I know learning it is going to take a while but I want to make sure that I'm on the right path at the moment for where my end game lies, I want to remake one of my old text based games into a 2D games (mostly menu based) with a top down combat (think similar to hotline miami style) kind of thing.

I plan to and am in the process of learning SDL as best I can but as far as I understand I will need some kind of engine to make things easier for me, I'm not entirely sure because I've never dabbled in this thing before and I have searched around quite a lot without much luck.

Any advice from people with knowledge or experience in this field would be absolutely wonderful!

I just need to figure out where I should go from here, be it getting and learning a certain engine, studying SDL and so on

(My old text based game is www.reddit.com/r/thewastes) if anyone want's to check out what I'm working with