The problem with these things is, they show you screenshots of the types of games you can supposedly make, but that is literally nothing to do with the game engine itself. That's art assets, which are a whole other ball of wax.
Most of these games, the programming itself is trivial. If you can't hack it together in Java without a game engine, then you're not going to be able to hack it together in the game engine.
If you want to make casual indie games that look great, you need to be focusing on your artwork, and how to make artwork that works well in games.
And for the love of god, do not neglect sound until the last minute. Good sound in a game can be as complex to create and program as graphics. You absolutely must develop it in tandem with the rest of your program. We are so focused on visuals, but bad sound will ruin a game more certainly than bad visuals, just as bad sound will ruin a movie more certainly than bad camera work. Bad visuals could be a stylistic choice, but bad sound never is.
Any suggestions on where to start with the artwork for a complete newbie? I'm very interested in game programming but the artwork has somewhat discouraged me for quite a bit.
3D: get Blender and focus on learning it. Treat it like learning a programming language. You get out of it as much as you put in. The only reason people don't use Blender is because it's not 3DSMAX or Maya and that was what they used in college, so that is what they've spent the most time on. Blender is much better now than 10 years ago. It was garbage 10 years ago, but I've done real work in it and found it to be quite easy to use even 2 years ago.
2D: study cartooning. Buy a Wacom tablet. Suck it up and buy Photoshop and Illustrator.
Adobe Creative Cloud membership is $50/mo, which is basically the price of Photoshop alone in a year, but gets you access to everything.
Audio: I started using Audition because of the CC membership, and it's been great (I've also put together a few, simple videos with Premiere because of CC). I find Audition is actually kind of fun to use.
Get yourself a drum machine of some kind. I have one of the older Korg Kaossilators, a handheld device that runs on batteries. The new ones are even better. I plug the headphone jack into the microphone jack of my computer and I record directly into Audition. Making serviceable music for games is quite easy with it. Just remember that less is more when it comes to music, and don't be afraid to do non-traditional stuff, off beat, dissonant. It's easy to make and creates much more atmosphere.
Neither I was able to figure out on my own, but they were all quite easy to use after reading a few tutorials on them.
Just remember, treat it like programming. You're not going to get it overnight.
Oh, the documentation for Blender does suck, though. There are certain key UI features that were moved after the documentation was written. Your best bet is to get into an IRC channel or a forum.
You can easily make music in software. Download Cockos Reaper and add some free VST synths. Its MIDI editing features aren't superb, but they'll do the job.
Most of these games, the programming itself is trivial. If you can't hack it together in Java without a game engine, then you're not going to be able to hack it together in the game engine.
If you want to make casual indie games that look great, you need to be focusing on your artwork, and how to make artwork that works well in games.
And for the love of god, do not neglect sound until the last minute. Good sound in a game can be as complex to create and program as graphics. You absolutely must develop it in tandem with the rest of your program. We are so focused on visuals, but bad sound will ruin a game more certainly than bad visuals, just as bad sound will ruin a movie more certainly than bad camera work. Bad visuals could be a stylistic choice, but bad sound never is.