Good game engine or API for simple 2D in 2012

[Algar32]

I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I am going to anyway. I plan on starting with a basic ant like simulation, with different classes with behaviors describing the activities of different ants. What would be acceptable for this? I plan on adding at least "ok" graphics at some point and would like to be able to use this same api for more advanced games in the future (all of which will be 2d). Any suggestions? I assume I will be told SDL would be a good starting point, but I figured I would see if I could get a few legitimate opinions before I get lmgtfy'd.
Thanks.

[TheDestroyer]

Before thinking about graphics, think about the underlying C++ implementation. Writing the internal C++ implementation correctly and efficiently is more important than the graphics interface.

Start by thinking about the simulation in an object oriented way. Which means, an ant could be a class, and you have to define the interaction between ants, and define the interaction with gravity probably... and other physics and biological interactions.

I have written a simulation about magnetometry. So I had to create a base class for all the components, and then subclasses for sensors, magnetic field sources, lasers and oscillators, and then I used polymorphism to create an "experiment", by adding those components to that experiment class and manage how all those components interact.

After that, and after having successful and correct results, I involved that in OpenGL (which was relatively easy, because of the object oriented approach I used) and had a realistic simulation with dynamic plotting.

So good luck :)

[Algar32]

Thanks for the tips :)