If you have your nose buried in spreadsheets all day at the office, you might enjoy a little change of pace even with Excel open. Cary Walkin, a chartered accountant up in the great white north, has created an RPG using just Excel’s macro system. It works on the Windows versions of Excel 2007 – 2013.
The story goes that you are captured by the Emperor and are thrown into an arena to fight for your life. On the left, you have your position and the enemies. On the right, your stats (blue) and the enemy’s stats (red) are shown. You can move using the arrow keys below your stats. You can also use melee and ranged attacks, heal yourself, or cast spells (after level 10).
The game is turn-based for both movement and attacks. You level up and can upgrade your skills like Attack, Defense, Accuracy, and Luck as you go. You might also gain new items to equip and help you out.
The game even includes achievements, tons of different enemies, and 8 different bosses.
You can download and get playing from carywalkin.wordpress.com. Version 1.1, with a few bug fixes, is slated to be released this weekend. For more details of the game mechanics, read the letters that pop up at different milestones throughout the game or check out the official Arena.Xlsm wiki.