(Old draft)
I remember coming across Allegro as a graphics library for games (10? 15?) years ago.
My impression at the time was that it was too simple, and “real games” would require more sophisticated stuff.
Turns out Factorio (a game that I came across and got briefly addicted to) is built (https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/6bzjmw/how_many_lines_of_what_language_of_code_is/dhr96ok?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) using Allegro, which as a library, is still around today (https://liballeg.org).
The (lol, painful) lesson should be: if you want to make something, make it now, using whatever tools you have now.