- Reaction score
- 1,703
Arena.Xlsm puts macros to work for leveling, battling, and collecting items.
It's not always easy (or possible) to install your favorite games on your work computer. Sometimes a bit of Solitaire or some collaborative Bomberman might be all you can manage—and it had better look like work to any nearby screen snoopers.
Over this past winter, Cary Walkin created the perfect solution to this problem: an entire RPG made of a spreadsheet and many macros. The game, called Arena.Xlsm, is a turn-based RPG encompassed entirely in an Excel file. Players can progress through levels, collect items, and battle enemies and bosses with melee and ranged attacks as well as spells.
While the game isn't a beauty to look at—the hero is represented by a smiley face and all enemies are all bracket-parenthesis pairs—it's fairly complex for, well, a spreadsheet. Attacks include a range of damage-inducing and healing spells that players buy and use with "blood," which regenerates with each turn. Players also find and can equip a range of weapons, including rocks, slingshots, bowling balls, rifles, ninja stars, and brass knuckles.
The game also engages in some light borrowing of characters and elements from other fictional universes. Players start off fighting bunnies and bees but quickly progress to vampires, ghosts, and dragons. The need to physically click on arrows to navigate around the screen can be a little bit cumbersome, but if your job is most easily simulated by a lot of clicking, your cubicle-mates may never notice a difference.
How an accountant created an entire RPG inside an Excel spreadsheet
Arena.Xlsm puts macros to work for leveling, battling, and collecting items.
