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Classic Arcade Games Excel in Spreadsheets
April 5th, 2008
Sure, you could use your copy of Microsoft Excel to create the business model for your next big multi-million dollar venture, or to calculate last month’s sales for your used car dealership, but why not put it to some really good use and play some arcade games with it instead?
Apparently, programming video games using insanely complex Excel Visual Basic macros is a bit of an art form in Japan. As a matter of fact, everything from Pac-Man to Space Invaders to Missile Command has been recreated with astounding detail using Excel macros.
Other spreadsheet games include versions of Donkey Kong, Dig Dug and Tetris. All in all, there are literally dozens of arcade classics that can be played in Excel. I’m especially impressed by the version of Arkanoid, complete with mouse and audio support (you don’t even know you’re in Excel when this one plays).
To play these games for yourself, just download the game you want from this website. Simply extract the .XLS from the archive (you may need something that can open LZH archives for some of these files), enable macros, and run the macro titled “start” or similar. Some of the games are a bit hit or miss due to problems with Japanese characters in the code, but I was able to get quite a few of them to play just fine on my machine. As a matter of fact, I was able to get a number of these games to run in the latest, greatest version of Excel 2007.
Once you’re up and running you can play all your favorites in between calculating standard deviations and building your loan amortization worksheet.
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those game programers deserve BIG respect … unfortunately, i use Open Office :o((
Open Office FTW!!!!
“unfortunately, i use Open Office :o((”
That is not unfortunate at all imo.
i use neooffice.. its open office for mac.
Those are nothing compared to DEX-EV. Go here to download it http://www.vector.co.jp/download/file/winnt/game/fh452052.html
the page is in all japanese but it should automatically download from that link. It is a Raiden style top-down arcade shooter. Z is shoot, X is shield, and C is to drop a bomb. You WILL die a lot but you have unlimited continues. Enjoy! ^_^
I use OOffice so i cant do this at home… :_(
unfortunately i pirated microsoft office 2008
oh wait
Wow this is great I never knew that this kind of programming could be done in excell. I rekon they program this stuff at work in there spare time. ttp://www.classicgamesarcade.com has lots of classic games to play on but they are done in flash.
Thanks for it
I know this is cheating, but I embed flash games in spreadsheets. So far I’ve made 40 of them, and people love it. I just started doing that so my co-workers wouldn’t get in trouble at work for being on websites playing games instead of working. :)
You should check them out, they’re at http://www.spreadsheetninja.com
Boy, that’s a real cheat. Unless the flash games themselves are made out of Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. :)
LOL! Last time I heard of Lotus 1-2-3 was back in the 80′s when my mother bought a computer for $8,000. Top of the line 8MHz with dual 5 1/4 floppy drives and MSDos 3.0. Is Lotus still around? I think I heard a rumor about them merging with somebody.
I would so fire you.
Check out dzikosoft.com for a download list of over 150 excel games.
It is just good to play in excel arcade claasaics and the Arkanoid is a very good version as it is.
ur all gay n im gonna kil u
This blows my mind that people can make some of the classic games in excel. Have they made Mr. Do! available in Excel? That was one of THE most fun games of all time from that era.
Regardless…I guess I have to ask, what is the point? When Flash and Java versions are available, other than to be super geeky….
don’t forget to check out http://www.excelgames.org/ they have quite a range of good old fashioned games
all u guys are GEEKS for this lol im dying right now
hi there how do you pause the game!!!!!!!!!! (ARkanoid)
Hi to everyone, i had a project in my computer class and my professor told us that we need to make a game by using the spreadsheet, and unfortunately i don’t how to do that. I need some help please. Can you please tell me what are the procedures in making a simple game using the spreadsheet. If it possible, I would like those games that had a graphics and moving.
Fortunately, I have still running IBM PC AT386 with MSDOS 6.22, and I play in a natural ARKANOID