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I'm developing a game of exteme secretism, and I'm thinking of making a particle system plugin that I can use in my next project, and every subsequent project after that as I so desire. However, I've never made a plugin before and my experience with DLLs is limited and, pardon the expression, rusty as shit. I'm going to try to work off of the AGS Visual C++ template provided, but in the meantime so I don't baffle myself, I have two questions that need answering. What should I be developing for, design time or run time? I want to have the particle system to just run based off of the classes I define and the functions I call from the DLL in my AGS scripts, not from a custom interface in the editor, so I'm assuming run-time is the focus, but the explaination of design time and run time is kind of ambiguous for this purpose, as the effects are felt in game (RT) but coded, modified, etc. in the editor (DT). Also, can custom classes be defined in the DLL and, if so, how do I inport them in code from the DLL. I've seen a few classes defined in the template but I am unsure as to if my own classes can be defined and exported with the AGS Engine recognizing them and allowing me to instantiate an instance of that class in code, since the classes defined were only standard to the engine.

The questions are probably self-explainatory and rhetorical, but still I have to be sure. Thanks to all who reply!

Got a quick question, possibly dumb :/.

Are function overloads possible in AGS?
Just considering the 3.0 beta, of course.

The BioShock demo just came out for XBox 360 and is coming out for PC. Anybody play it?

I downloaded the demo after a fortnight to my XBox and it was freaking awesome! If you've never heard of BS (under-rock living is quite the way to live, or so I've heard), basically you get into this nasty plane crash into the ocean and are the only survivor. You find this huge, monolithic tower that takes you down about 18 fathoms (i think it's a bit deeper than that - that was just the last measurement shown) to a huge underwater city and you basically proceed to beat and zap the shit out of everything. It's pretty damn amazing in my opinion - you even get to beat a woman with a baby who is a revolver with a pipe wrench! Finally, a wonderous, highly-detailed game that teaches children how to survive if ever they should be lost in a gigantic underwater city! CRAAAAZY-GOOOD!!!

I just started at Full Sail Real World Education this July in their Game Development program, and I'm hella pumped! Anyone else in college now who's just started like me, or is an experienced GPA guru who's been around the college block? Anyone who's planning on going soon? Tell ya experiences, trials and tribulations here, whether in college, preparing for it, or feeling like mentioning your past college experiences? Share them here!
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For me, my two months so far have been pretty good. Full Sail operates on an accelerated program, so a lot of preparation in preparing for each term (where term = one month, totalling about 21 terms if I pass every class) that I, as a student, must handle myself. In fact, first few days of class I forgot to pick up my books and laptop (very, very important to do!) and the schedule can get pretty 'hecktyc.' Parking is usually really bad, too. On a couple of days, I couldn't even find a space! I would scan up and down the rows of cars and find no solace. Eventualy, like 15 minutes later, I'd just give up and park in this little safe-zone located in the parking lot near an Albertsons grocery store (I say safe-zone because there are certain areas in the lot that if you parked elsewhere, you would be towed for around $130! Don't want that, for sure.) Other than that, I've mostly been satisfied with what I've learned so far. It's all part of getting down the 'ed-u-ma-k-tyun', right?

"The Bionic Blog" is finally up, detailing everything anyone would want to know about my life, my thoughts, my projects, my whatever-ya-want! Check it out. If you favorite it, it will grow. Or come - to be far bigger than it is now in the following days.

The Bionic Blog is up - Click here!