Reality is a Game

Game thinking from Adam Clare

Tag: Excel

Using Excel and Google Docs for Game Design

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On 04/04/2013

In Design, Experimental

Many years ago I decided that I will never work with Excel because the program is awful and is associated with incredibly boring things like accounting and scheduling. However, all that changed once I got into game design. Using spreadsheet software is an integral part to game design so it’s inevitable that one will have to use Excel, Google Docs, Numbers, or Open Office.

For people like me who harbour a disdain for spreadsheets some guides on how they are used in game design have been made. Over at Ruby Cow Games there is a two part series on how they have used spreadsheets for game balancing and probability in one of their card games. Part one explores the initial cards and their distribution. Part two explores how they used formulas to visualize data for balance issues and model potential gameplay.

You can see their spreadsheets online to see how they used it and get inspiration for how you can use spreadsheets too.

Gamasutra has an article on how spreadsheets are used in game design which provides a good introduction to core features. So if you’re hesitant to get into the world of spreadsheets like I was, don’t fret: it’s not all boring numbers.

You can make playable games in Excel

Arena.Xlsm is a RPG made entirely in an Excel file. You will need to enable macros to play the game. The best part of the game is that it is made by an accountant, so they aren’t boring 😉 The image above is the game in action.

Games in Microsoft Excel aren’t new, which means that there are a lot of games you can play at work right now. Over at Techno JOurney they have a list of games in Excel you can download.

Microsoft has even included a flight simulator in Excel!

Transmedia Storytelling Tools

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On 24/11/2012

In Design, Experimental

Transmedia stories have pros and cons to them and how they are told. One question that comes a lot is how to organize all the actions and events that a good transmedia experience has in a cohesive way. Not only does the transmedia story need to be organized from a designer’s perspective (videos, tweets, emails, etc.) over the run of the story but it needs to also be organized from a player’s perspective. This in itself is a major issue in transmedia design.

There is no ready-made solution for transmedia storytelling but it has come a long way from the early days when everything was tracked with ghetto Excel spreadsheets. Here’s an incomplete list of some tools that can be useful for anything like transmedia.

The Shadow Gang has made a “turn key” solution for starting a transmedia project. It looks like they want to be an all-in-one solution.

For phone based stuff check out Twilio.

Moveable Feast allows to blend maps and any media together to form a unified experience.

If This Than That is an online tool that lets you merge together quite a few different online services to get people from one thing to the next.

SCVNGR is all about getting people to do something at a particular time and place.

Conducttr looks like another all in one solution. They have examples of case studies that their tool has been used in.

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