Accountant Creates RPG Entirely in Excel Spreadsheet

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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Accountant Creates RPG Entirely in Excel Spreadsheet


Arena.Xlsm is a fully-fledged RPG with over 2,000 enemies, 1,000 items, boss encounters and four different endings.

We've all heard the jokes about how some RPGs require you to spend hours poring through spreadsheets to be successful. But what if the spreadsheet was the RPG? Cary Walkin, an accountant and MBA candidate at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, has come to the salvation of bored office workers all around the world by coding a fully-fledged RPG entirely in Microsoft Excel. The game has over 2,000 enemies, 1,000 items, boss encounters, and a full story with four different endings.

Arena.Xlsm is an arena-based roguelike RPG. Grinding, a chore common to most RPGs, doesn't play too big of a role in Arena.Xlsm, with the game's creator telling us that "The leveling system acts primarily as a gatekeeper to gradually introduce new story, enemy types, spells, etc. The amount of kills needed per level should be approximately 3-6 kills regardless of level. Level grind can ruin the pacing of a game so I've done my best to keep it to a minimum."

As well as the procedurally generated enemies and items, the game features 15 unique items with special effects and eight unique boss monsters. There are also 31 different spells for you to learn, and 36 achievements to earn. More information on the enemies, items and spells can be found on the official Arena.Xlsm wiki. [http://arenaxlsm.wikia.com/wiki/Arena.Xlsm_Wiki?file=2-17-13-Arena.jpg]

Arena.Xlsm has been tested to work on PC versions of Microsoft Excel including Excel 2007, and Excel 2010. It should also work on Excel 2013 although this has not been extensively tested. Arena.Xlsm will not work on Mac versions of Microsoft Excel. The game uses Excel macros to execute the programming for the game. In order to play the game you must enable macros in Excel [http://arenaxlsm.wikia.com/wiki/Macros].

Saving your progress is as simple as making a copy of the Arena.Xlsm workbook and renaming it. The game is available completely free from Walkin's wordpress [http://carywalkin.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/v1-0-arena.xlsm], so go ahead and ruin your productivity for the rest of the day.

Source: Cary Walkin Wordpress [http://carywalkin.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/arena-xlsm-released/]

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Teoes

Poof, poof, sparkles!
Jun 1, 2010
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I wonder if I could build this into my work's reporting/rating templates for a larf..
 

snekadid

Lord of the Salt
Mar 29, 2012
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Wow..... mac can't even run this game.... /trollface

This is both genius and deeply disturbing.
 

ascorbius

Numberwanger
Nov 18, 2009
263
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This cracks me up. In my years I've seen spreadsheets abused in any number of ways by those who see the need to get something done, but only understand spreadsheets... (It's OK, you don't have to develop a database app for the department to use, I have a spreadsheet we can pass around - facepalm) - 6 months later, same department is asking IT to fix said spreadsheet 'cos the only person who knew how it worked has left and they want changes made, Database application gets developed...

Now a game?..
 

Longstreet

New member
Jun 16, 2012
705
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aaaaaaand, i got an error after i killed the first enemy.

Well, guess i now have run out of excuses for my complete lack of productivity and actually gotta go do something....
 

joypunk

New member
Nov 7, 2006
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Come on guys, ya'll are better than this. You misspelled the name of the game 7 out of the 8 times it's in the article.
 

TitanAura

New member
Jun 30, 2011
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joypunk said:
Come on guys, ya'll are better than this. You misspelled the name of the game 7 out of the 8 times it's in the article.
omg I thought it was just my eyes going fuzzy lol! Yeah, might wanna fix that.
 

WMDogma

New member
Jul 28, 2009
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TitanAura said:
joypunk said:
Come on guys, ya'll are better than this. You misspelled the name of the game 7 out of the 8 times it's in the article.
omg I thought it was just my eyes going fuzzy lol! Yeah, might wanna fix that.
It's been corrected, apologies for the error.
 

Baresark

New member
Dec 19, 2010
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ascorbius said:
This cracks me up. In my years I've seen spreadsheets abused in any number of ways by those who see the need to get something done, but only understand spreadsheets... (It's OK, you don't have to develop a database app for the department to use, I have a spreadsheet we can pass around - facepalm) - 6 months later, same department is asking IT to fix said spreadsheet 'cos the only person who knew how it worked has left and they want changes made, Database application gets developed...

Now a game?..
Haha, this is common where I work too. Some lady needs help because she can't search her spreadsheet that consists of 52 thousand lines. Imagine that, it crashes her excel. At one point she even insisted on sending her computer in for a RAM upgrade, which of course didn't fix it. She was finally walked through converting it into a database by one of my co-workers. And why? Because they just pass around the same spreadsheet to the whole department to made additions too.
 

kburns10

You Gots to Chill
Sep 10, 2012
276
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Baresark said:
Haha, this is common where I work too. Some lady needs help because she can't search her spreadsheet that consists of 52 thousand lines. Imagine that, it crashes her excel. At one point she even insisted on sending her computer in for a RAM upgrade, which of course didn't fix it. She was finally walked through converting it into a database by one of my co-workers. And why? Because they just pass around the same spreadsheet to the whole department to made additions too.
Sounds like my old job. Instead of, you know, creating separate documents, let's just continue to add to the original one until it either takes 5 minutes to open, or it crashes upon opening. Referring to the story though, that's impressive that an accountant had this much free time!
 

Formica Archonis

Anonymous Source
Nov 13, 2009
2,312
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Steven Bogos said:
spend hours pouring through spreadsheets
I think you mean poring [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pore?db=*]. Excel runs poorly on computers that have stuff poured through them.
 

synobal

New member
Jun 8, 2011
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In before people start making Eve Online related jokes.

Seriously though most games are powered by what basically is excel like sheets of numbers and stats.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Jan 24, 2009
3,056
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DVS BSTrD said:
Rated M for Mature:
Contains graphic violence.
I'm going to hell for finding that funny.

OT: this just shows what you can do with enough time and investment in anything. What's next, an FPS in Powerpoint?
 

Owen Robertson

New member
Jul 26, 2011
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DVS BSTrD said:
Rated M for Mature:
Contains graphic violence.
Wordplay eh?

Cary won't be held accountable for any lost time.

This game is Excel-lent!

I can imagine playing this at work would incur a few boss encounters.
 

TheMadDoctorsCat

New member
Apr 2, 2008
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Now his bosses will finally know what he's been doing when he should've been tabulating the profit margins.

He is SOO fired.
 

shiajun

New member
Jun 12, 2008
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There is such sweet poetry of an RPG literally being reduced to an Excel spreadhseet that there's nothing more I can add than "bravo, man, bravo".