Looking to design a learning game that teaches formal, critical thinking. The demographic would be those who have never taken a critical thinking course or a logic course. But I just don't know what to use to create it. I'm a novice in programming but have the motivation to put in the time to learn.

Starting the user out slow, focusing on argument form and the nature of arguments, how to identify the issue being discussed, identifying and evaluating value and descriptive assumptions, moving on to fallacies, types of evidence and their relative strengths/weaknesses, etc. Maybe adding sections on types of logic (syllogistic, propositional, predicate, modal.  

More of a focus on text-based learning and interaction, but with images, animations, maybe video (I don't know).  

Think of it as a modern and more interactive version of Logicola (it's ok if you don't know what that is).

So it isn't graphics heavy, definitely not 3D or even 2D platform sort of game. Maybe something similar to the JackBox games on Steam, but not entirely sure at this point.

Thoughts? What are some good possibilities to use for such a project? I'd like to be able to market it, perhaps on Steam, maybe even to education institutions. 

This is a abstract idea. There is no way we can tell you what software to use or what language as it won't matter what you use to realize your idea.

Python is often used by Universities for teaching students how to make educational software , Pygame is often as the engine. I want to point out that the Universities use these because they are good starter platforms, if your new to game development these are good choices.

You could also use a engine like Unity, it's aimed at beginners and uses C# or Java as it's main programming languages. Unity does have the side effect that the basics is easy and the essentials is difficult in comparison.

If you want to dive into the deep end of game development start with Unreal 4  and C++. I will warn against this for new developers, Unreal expects that you know about game development before you use it.

As always you can also skip the engine part and just use what ever language you want with a API like OpenGL or DirectX. This will give you the most freedom but is also the most work.

2 hours ago, Apokalupsis said:

So it isn't graphics heavy, definitely not 3D or even 2D platform sort of game. Maybe something similar to the JackBox games on Steam, but not entirely sure at this point.

So I tried a JackBox game and although it looks simple it really isn't amateur work. You will definitely be practicing for a few months just to clone it if your new to game design and programming.

You can easily achieve this quality with any of the above software.

Thanks for the info.

But now I'm wondering if Unity Playmaker might be a viable solution. My goal here isn't necessarily to learn to program but to create this project. As I understand it, Playmaker may allow this. But I don't know if it is suitable for what I described above. 

Thoughts?

If you have no intent on learning to code, just use GameMaker, it's a very easy solution for drag and drop.

Will that work for what I described in the op? Don't need fancy 3d or even 2 graphics.

And how is that different from Unity Playmaker?

1 hour ago, Apokalupsis said:

Will that work for what I described in the op? Don't need fancy 3d or even 2 graphics.

And how is that different from Unity Playmaker?

I would suggest you do some research on GameMaker. https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/features