You might also look into XNA. VS could be used for displaying the animation, but you'd want to create the art in a graphics program. Managed code, such as any of the .NET languages, is not going to create the fastest possible animation, as you would want in many games, because .NET languages don't create the fastest possible executable code. However, you can certainly perform animation in .NET using several different techniques. The simplest is probably GDI+, but it also has the most limitations as far as speed. XNA is faster, and more difficult. It goes on up from there.