Going along pretty well Teal. 
As for Particle Forge, it can be a bit daunting to look at, but its real easy and fast to make custom effects once you play around with it for a bit. Just remember to watch your particle count, because you can actually get some pretty nice effects like smoke and fire if you crank the count up into hundreds (I once went for several thousand just for kicks), but that won't agree too well with the engine. Always keep in mind not only the particle count for that specific effect, but also on how many instances of that effect you expect to be rendered in the game engine at the same time (for example, weapon effects should generally have a low particle count because you can see hundreds of them onscreen at a time).