First 3D Shooter in Microsoft Excel

DOWNLOAD

Quote

All we know about the Excel. And we know that it gives ability to write macros. Some use it to write office extensions. It can be used for fun too. Some of us have heard about games, written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) as Excel macros. Snake, Tetris, Monopoly, RPG Adventure... The evolution of these games follows the evolution of PC/console games of 70s-80s. Now it's time to push it harder to the era the early 90s. Let me introduce "Dave vs Ziggy" - first 3D first-person shooter within the Excel macros. Yes, it can be treated as another "ugly Doom/Wolfenstein clone for calculator", but beyond this concept game has it's own features (some narrative, authentic 3D engine with "multy-floor" design, shaders, voxel and texturized polygonal objects, interactive mechanics, bloody shootouts and incorporated gold-based games within the game, like Box World and Pong) and distinctive retro-pixel appearance (game screen resolution 110x78 cells of worksheet, 56 colors palette, 32x32 pixel of texture size), somewhat reminiscent of first 3D shooters. All the game have written as the one single VBA macro and stored with all the additional data (including worksheet-based level maps, pixel art, 3D voxel/polygonal models, authentic music and sounds) in one single .xls file of 4+Mb size. Requires Windows XP or higher and Excel 2003-2007 for the best performance. Briefly, storyline starts in far 1979 as a survival of an average worker of secret scientific base against the invasion of deadly alien, waked up from the 1-million-year sleep by the scientists. Protagonist's name is Dave (reminiscent of Dangerous Dave ID Software arcade), and alien's name is Ziggy (as Ziggy Stardust). Our Dave isn't a "doom-guy" in any way, he is just civil, hi's fearful and not skilled in shooting or war tactics, so he will get the "painful lessons of war" during the game playthrough. Dave doesn't want to save the Earth - he just wants to save himself. But to run away from this haunted base, where he is the last human, he has to get into the deep heart of the base to unlock the exit from the base. So, during the game, Dave will turn into the hero against-his-will. At the start of the game he has only screw-wrench as a weapon. It's capable of breaking boxes and defeating of weakest monsters in the game, but that's all. Dave has some skills in miner's work, including explosive, so TNT will be his most powerful weapon (Dave even can break some walls with it). During the game he will face with zombie guards and scientists, experimental creatures and Ziggy itself (by evidence, Ziggy can clone himself, so it will not be easy to defeat him). Obviously, the most popular weapon in the game is a shotgun (there are a lot of bullets for this weapon with in the game - Dave can find it in boxes, achieve it as loot, buy it from automatic sellers). It has decent power in far and near fight. The Quadrogun (some kind of handy 4-barrel Gatling gun) and Plasmagun are powerful and capable of defeating bosses or crowded monsters, but Dave always in lack of bullets for these weapons, so he has to use it wisely. Dave can earn gold in this game (finding it on a map, playing Pong on a in-game computers, performing payed Container multi-teleportation work, reminiscent of old Box World game, or get it in a teller machines by IDs, which Dave have to find on a map), and this gold isn't useless - Dave can spend it on shotgun bullets and health by interacting with appropriate automated seller. The game is full of moving parts - doors,container boxes, hidden moving walls, trains (remember subway Surf and try not to get under one of them), moving and flying platforms, presses and lifts. And it has some dangerous areas (puddles of acid and lava, deep mines, razor-fields), so Dave has to avoid it to stay alive an healthy. Assemble all it together - and we get interesting (despite of "not-for-all" appearance) action game just on the Excel spreadsheet. Hope you enjoying this (if yes - don't hesitate to thumbs up and subscribe). Thanks for watching it and good luck!

==================

F&ck me, those Blood-voxel-styled weapon pickups...