i somewhat am new at darkbasic. i started a year ago and gave up, and now im tryin it again. guess what...i still cant get it

anyway right now im serious about making a game, but then again not serious enough. i spent weeks planning this and that and drawing all of the characters. then i remembered db. i tried refreshing myself with some tutorials, but that didnt work. id get a breakthrough and experiment and then i would say something like this:
health$=100
damagetaken$=7
fullhealth$=health$-" "+damagetaken$
print fullhealth$
i would end up with 1007 instead of 107. in a last effort, i turned to the db forums. the truth is, i am a bad programmer

i took one class when i was 10, to learn how to program basic. i made stick figure trivia

but that was about it. getting to the point....
is there anyone who could give me a few helpful hints on making any game.even a stupid game, just to start me off. i really dont kno where to start. and if you tell me to look in the tutorial section, be specific as to WHERE in the tutorials please! thanks for your time.
RANDOM SQUIRREL!