VBGamer

I did that last semester too! Nuts to database programming!! :-) It IS possible. And in much less than a year. Last spring I learned DirectSound, DirectInput and DirectPlay as well as a bit of DirectDraw I didn't already know, as well as writing a demo from scratch including a 2D tile engine/level editor, all in 4 months. Of course, that was a project semester, so that was the only thing I was doing, but as far as DirectPlay goes, you should be able to learn the basics in not too long. I would advise against going 3D... That in itself would eat all your time. But beware - the DirectPlay documentation is sparse at best, and it's got some weird idiosyncrocies that I can't figure out for the life of me. I hope DPlay 8 gets a lot of attention from MS, seeing as multiplayer's such a big component of games these days.