digg

Join DiggAbout

The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.

See the original image at gamasutra.com —

Microsoft Excel as a Revolutionary Game Engine?

gamasutra.com — Peter Rakos warns that using Microsoft Excel as a game engine is "only for determined experts." Nonetheless, it can be done, he says, and in this Gamasutra feature, he explains how. For one thing, he says, few people know that Excel has not one, but two embedded rendering subsystems.

show profanity settings
expand all
  • JointheCult, on 03/07/2008, -3/+150This is one of the most thought provoking things of read on digg in some time. I hope that this article doesn't drop off digg's radar.
    • cgruber, on 03/07/2008, -2/+4It will go over the heads of most (I think), but what's very cool about it is it lets your vizualize the calculations as it's occuring.
    • directrix13, on 03/07/2008, -16/+4Why is everybody so impressed by this? Seriously, this is just basic 3D math and using Office's built in polygon drawing functions. OMG, I'm thinking outside of the box because I made cell's calculate things instead of just running everything through lines of code. This is fine and all for people to learn the math behind it, but its not revolutionary at all. I was doing this crap in 10th grade in friggin' Chipmunk basic, come on guys.
      • insertAliasHere, on 03/07/2008, -2/+14Don't pat yourself on the back so hard, you might break it.
        • directrix13, on 03/07/2008, -8/+4I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm just slightly disillusioned by crap like this being called thought provoking, revolutionary, or friggin anything besides a very basic demo of 3D transformations in Excel. Ooh gee, Excel can do calculations??? Derrrrr.... Not to say this doesn't have merit, but I can't believe it hit the front page.
          • skinjester, on 03/07/2008, -2/+6you're very clever, and I'm sure your parents are proud however most users of the product don't use it this way. That's sort of the point of the article.
          • directrix13, on 03/07/2008, -3/+6OK. I guess I was the only one let down after reading that description. Thats cool.
          • rpgmaker, on 03/08/2008, -1/+4You are the definition of ass.
          • directrix13, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1Fine, you win I retract all my statements. I'm a pompous ass, and this is the most fascinating rotating 8 points called a 3D engine in Excel ever.
      • ghoul11, on 03/07/2008, -8/+0you are the man! when I was in 10th grade I was working on getting some action!
        • directrix13, on 03/07/2008, -11/+3Hey do you work for me? Be honest now. I think I saw you scrubbing my toilet.
      • Niggerpatrol, on 03/07/2008, -14/+1HEY *****, I REALLY CARE WHAT YOU THINK





        HONESTLY

        NOW PIPE DOWN CHARLES
        • haiduz, on 03/08/2008, -1/+7I am very offended by your use of caplocks. That type of last century thinking has no place in today's society.
        • LocalDocal, on 03/08/2008, -1/+0You know, Patrol, people like you are the reason why there's so many wars in the world. People like you think saying the N-word is funny, anti-culture, a tongue-in-cheek poke at the flawed view of racism, or some stupid ***** like that. Well, guess what, *****? Worthless people like you should go do something which actually qualify as 'productive'.
          • robocop1, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3"Well, guess what, *****?"
            Oh the irony!
          • Magnus150, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1I see your racial slur and raise you a homosexual bash!
    • trogdor282, on 03/07/2008, -3/+11Does anybody have the link to that tv clip where they play prince of persia on xbox and when the game ends it switches to Excel and reveals all the incriminating haxor data?
    • mattmcm, on 03/07/2008, -0/+15Here's some more Excel goodness. This guy has made Pacman and Space Invaders clones:
      http://www.geocities.jp/nchikada/pac/
    • twertyto, on 03/07/2008, -6/+1Boobies?
    • stackered, on 03/07/2008, -6/+1Wait... how is this thought provoking? WTF are you smoking?
    • teh_techie, on 03/07/2008, -2/+6Is this a rebuttal to those Mac vs. PC commercials? WE CAN HAVE FUN WITH PC'S! GO SPREADSHEETS GO!!
    • Myztry, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1I wrote a nested 3d world (think rotating moon > Earth > Sun > Galaxy) calculating in about 120 bytes (to fit in processor cache) for the 68020 (though I only had a 68000 Amiga). Matrices (which the cells represent) are quite simple. Plug in the values, and of it goes.
      Only difference is back in the 80's they were simply called Structures rather than spreadsheet cells.
  • johnflan, on 03/07/2008, -2/+79Thats dam incredible, we need to see more of this stuff on digg
  • mister711, on 03/07/2008, -2/+13I downloaded the Excel sample files http://gamasutra.com/images/RakosExcel.zip
    Does anyone know how to start the cube?
    • stung47000, on 03/07/2008, -1/+17Tools -> Macro -> Macros (Alt-F8)
      Then run the shorter named macro. Neat stuff.
      • Ramble, on 03/07/2008, -0/+13That's View -> Macros in Excel 2007. You have to enable them first in the trust centre, which is found in the options.
        • mister711, on 03/07/2008, -0/+3Thanks. I never seen Excel take up 100% of the cpu. I will have to try this on a quad core.
    • markp93, on 03/07/2008, -0/+7...or, if you are running office 2007, do 'view->macros', then run the macro. ESC to stop.
    • UnstableMind, on 03/07/2008, -1/+9Alt-F4...does that still work?
    • jboettcher, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1ALT F8 as it says in the article..

      UnstableMind... yeah ALT F4 still works. gotta love shortcuts.
    • punchinelli, on 03/08/2008, -0/+4Or, you can try RTFA
    • Jpardue, on 03/08/2008, -0/+10↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A
  • classhelper, on 03/07/2008, -17/+68Where's the OpenOffice.org version :) ?
    • cquilliam, on 03/07/2008, -2/+79From Eeggs.com:
      1. create a new sheetin openoffice.org Calc (spreadsheet)
      2. enter this formula in a cell :
      =game()
      and validate (validation button or enter)
      3.the cell will display "say what?"
      4. Enter this formula:
      =GAME("StarWars")
      5. a new window will open with a little game star war game.
      6. But if you type again this formula, the cell will return the display "oh no, not again!"
      7. to be able to play again, you need to close the file, close openoffice.org and the QuickStarter, and then make the same.
  • krunk4ever, on 03/07/2008, -4/+9You can check out the higher quality videos:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vypETZbkU94&fmt=18
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6uiZj0FHM&fmt=18
    • brettmurf, on 03/07/2008, -3/+2Man, youtube does not want to play either of those links at all.
    • Shaflugi, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2Must've been REALLY low quality if it's of higher quality on Youtube.
    • RATM4EVER, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2Phew! Thank god the vid didn't start with a synthetic drum beat and a guy doing a dance in a denim outfit.
      • SquigglyP, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2I dunno. If i don't get rick-rolled at least once per day I start getting moody.
  • Christbait, on 03/07/2008, -7/+19Breaking News: All 8th Generation games will all be coded in Microsoft Excel.
    • AlucardX24, on 03/07/2008, -0/+12I coulda sworn I played a space mmo that's strikingly similar to Excel. Oh yeah.. EVE Online.
  • Postmodernism, on 03/07/2008, -6/+25When it comes to game engines, I prefer Hyper Card.
    • cerejota, on 03/07/2008, -3/+4FTW!
    • bakagaigin, on 03/07/2008, -1/+6Ah man! Is that ***** still around? Last time I heard about it was in like 1998, under the name Hyper Studio.
      • Tullamore, on 03/07/2008, -0/+3HyperCard was from Apple and HyperStudio was a competing program from another company that had a better use of color and video before HyperCard did.
    • khellendros1984, on 03/07/2008, -1/+7Woooo! Myst!
  • altodarknight, on 03/07/2008, -14/+4Its efficiancy that is the key though. What is the CPU load (remember this is software based 3D, no hardware acceleration (GPU) of a simple cube (minimum of 12 triangular polygons) VS the same cube in say unreal 3 (just a common one most would know)?

    Also, the idea of 2D programing structure is simply a GUI layer over linear code. It might be easier and more logical for some things for some people, but by working in a linear fashion, you have greater control over the edn result, as CPUs process one thing at a time sequentially. Even with multi-threading, linear code ios preferable as there are languages in labs right now that at multi-threading at the compiler stage.
    • Kurlumbenus, on 03/07/2008, -1/+2Tool.
    • linuxpenguin, on 03/08/2008, -1/+2I don't think anyone's seriously considering this as a game engine.
  • Ninjao, on 03/07/2008, -1/+2What the *****? I remember I coded a game of "Kniffel" in Excel but not in 3d :P
  • SushiCW, on 03/07/2008, -2/+58This is cool. Not because Excel is a good rendering engine (it isn't) but because it lets you more clearly see all the math that goes into it. It's an excellent learning tool.
  • talonstriker, on 03/07/2008, -24/+6oh man... you program this using BASIC... DO NOT WANT
    • terminal157, on 03/08/2008, -0/+310 print "what's wrong with BASIC?"
      20 goto 10
  • juckman, on 03/07/2008, -8/+106"But will it run Crysis?"

    YES! I've always wanted to say an overplayed comment.
    • equallyunequal, on 03/07/2008, -3/+37I for one welcome our over-used-internet-meme overlords!
      • DarkDx, on 03/07/2008, -1/+13I see what you did there!
        • Scrappy1850, on 03/07/2008, -1/+21in mother russia excel renders you!
          • t3soro, on 03/07/2008, -4/+2***** noobs
          • celkin, on 03/08/2008, -0/+4in SOVIET Russia

            *fix'd
          • fcukthisgame, on 03/08/2008, -1/+1COMBO BREAKERRRRRRRR!!!!!1111ELEVENTYONE!!!11
          • aquadoctorbob, on 03/08/2008, -1/+0I've just had an epiphany. What would happen if everyone started yelling "C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!"? How could you stop it?
        • yohnstoppable, on 03/07/2008, -1/+5Are references to Skeletor vs Beastman still relevant?
    • mattsegal, on 03/07/2008, -8/+2well you failed
      • JudgeMonkey, on 03/07/2008, -1/+1Since we're using overplayed internet comments/memes, you SHOULD have said

        Fission Mailed
    • IllBeBack, on 03/07/2008, -0/+9And now you've done it! Now you may leave. Goodbye.
    • Kurlumbenus, on 03/07/2008, -6/+1RON PAUL ***** THE MAFIAA
  • aajjcckk, on 03/07/2008, -41/+2
    • Gryffydd, on 03/07/2008, -1/+22This is what happened when digg quit being a tech site.
    • FlyingSpaghetti, on 03/07/2008, -0/+1You're obviously a bitter version of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds.
    • Ramble, on 03/07/2008, -0/+2It doesn't, but it has features (matricies, trig, etc.) which let you do that.
    • solistus, on 03/07/2008, -0/+11. No, it doesn't. It allows you to _write an engine_ that does the calculation.

      2. You just stated why the story was interesting, then asked why it was interesting. So what? So, we find it interesting and choose to read and digg the article. If you don't like this "geek crap," stay the hell out of the Digg gaming news section, mmkay?
  • frogman54, on 03/07/2008, -2/+296I have always played games in Excel. My favorite is called "I Have No Money."
  • Shawn4168, on 03/07/2008, -6/+148Goodbye, DirectX. Hello, DirectExcel.
    • flytronix, on 03/07/2008, -0/+23DirectXcel
    • NeoShader, on 03/07/2008, -6/+1This comment is full of win.
    • Coolmatt49, on 03/08/2008, -1/+3I see what you did there.
      • McBadass, on 03/08/2008, -1/+2Swear to God that is the exact comment I thought to put here before I opened the tree.
    • linuxpenguin, on 03/08/2008, -1/+1Next in line: Ebox and Ebox360
    • SquigglyP, on 03/08/2008, -1/+1I'll wager Nvidia is rushing a chipset to market as we speak.
  • hydroplane, on 03/07/2008, -0/+83Can't wait for first person pivot tables.
  • doctechnical, on 03/07/2008, -0/+14Kudos to the author for thinking outside the box. Now I'm tempted to see if I can make it draw snowflakes (a weird pseudo-passion of mine).
    I seem to remember some version of Excel having a sort of flight-simulator built in as an Easter Egg.
    • Ramble, on 03/07/2008, -1/+6There's no reason you can't use Excel to calculate fractals.
    • relapse, on 03/07/2008, -2/+2I know Excel 2000 had a Spy Hunter clone hidden in it.
    • cresswga, on 03/07/2008, -1/+5I think the Flight Sim was in Excel 97. I cant get it to work in 2003.
      • khellendros1984, on 03/07/2008, -1/+2Yea, it only worked in Excel 97. Other versions usually just play credits if you do a similar action.
    • Scrappy1850, on 03/07/2008, -0/+24im going to use it to make it draw ***** (a weird pseudo-passion of mine)
    • RevoFM, on 03/07/2008, -0/+1You sure it's a pseudo-passion and not a n outrageous fetish?
      • doctechnical, on 03/07/2008, -0/+6Yes, I admit it, I find hexagonally symmetric chicks hawt.
  • hotdigg, on 03/07/2008, -3/+8This is what happens when nerds go wild!
  • SerpentJoe, on 03/07/2008, -1/+6I already knew it played Conway's Game Of Life. Why would you need anything else?
    • doctechnical, on 03/07/2008, -1/+3Cellular Automata on a spreadsheet... damn, why didn't I think of that?
    • jnosanov, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2Link?
  • vofuse, on 03/07/2008, -0/+6I was going to post a link to the video of the TV show where the drug dealer uses Prince of Persia to display an Excel file, but it seems to no longer be on YouTube...

    http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/13/nbcs-life-invest ...
    http://ozymandias.com/archive/2007/11/12/excel-on- ...
  • gencha, on 03/07/2008, -0/+8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_whSnPErl7c&watch_r ...
  • pukearrhea, on 03/07/2008, -1/+4I thought it was a Doom or Wolfenstein level that was an easter egg in Excel.
  • stevedusa, on 03/07/2008, -0/+2I here to quote from Patrick Star in one of the episodes:
    "Oh do you want to run some statistics?"
  • qber, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4Does anyone remember that SpyHunter game that was an easter egg in Excel 97?
    • domdunc, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1yeah dude, it was bizarre and awesome. Oil slicks ftw.
  • Mjolniir, on 03/07/2008, -1/+3I saw some special on G4tv where they were talking talking about designing their levels in an early game in spreadsheets and the engine would render the bsp from the information in it. I think maybe it was Insomniac or something.
    • Kurlumbenus, on 03/07/2008, -1/+3Morgan Web is HOT.
    • rmeddy, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1I think it was Insomniac Games or Naughty Dog with their first game because they couldn't afford the Graphics and Design tool programs.
  • elfprince13, on 03/07/2008, -0/+39anybody else remember the Excel flight simulator?
    • rocketboot, on 03/07/2008, -0/+1The crazy purple planet one? I'm pretty sure that was in Excel.
    • dav1ddelgado, on 03/07/2008, -0/+3Yup, and you had to go to a certain cell and do something in it... I don't remember what, but teachers always freaked out when somehow students were playing games during class.
    • link5280, on 03/08/2008, -0/+1Yup, that was in Excel 97 I think?
  • JasonCox, on 03/07/2008, -1/+11X97 L97
    :-)
  • patm1987, on 03/07/2008, -3/+9I guess it makes sense, why simulate excel with games like Masters of Orion when you can just use excel?

    On a more serious note, I like how they specify one of the advantages as being able to render with polygons and not triangles. After writing rasterizers for both (not the engine, the math for drawing the polygons and triangles), drawing triangles is noticeably faster (even on just the CPU and written in C). If you feel out working out the math for linear interpolation along a triangle (hint, barycentric coordinates) you will find that it becomes more efficient to just tessellate the polygons and using linear interpolation along the resulting triangles than using the often-taught line-filling algorithm. The point I'm trying to get to with this, is that some people have already pointed out that this can't be efficient written in Visual Basic and Excel. They just don't get that this is probably limited entirely to slower (preferably turn based) games. And that the "It draws polygons and not just triangles" thing is not really a divine feature, it just makes your physics programmer hate you and lowers your framerate even more.

    Due to the relatively small install base of Excel (I'm assuming this just from the people I know and myself, very few of us have actual Excel), and inefficiencies, I doubt that much will come out of this, but I guess the same was thought for RAD tools prior to Myst. I could see this being used similarly to my use of MatLab or SciLab, testing and debugging new algorithms before trying to implement them in a language less friendly to my naive blunders, but I would say don't expect to need to go out and "attain" a new copy of Excel unless Microsoft decides to start touting this new cross platform (Windows and OSX) game development toolkit.
    • solistus, on 03/07/2008, -1/+6Relatively small install base? For an app from MS Office? I hope you are kidding. The Office apps probably have the largest consumer and corporate user base of any software on the planet. Also, if that's the biggest practical hurdle you see here aside from polygon physics, I think you missed the point ;)
  • BlueStarr, on 03/07/2008, -8/+6ROTFL
    God! It's a great time to be a Mac user, right?
    OOPS

    /Troll-Off
    • ThreeDee912, on 03/07/2008, -0/+5Microsoft Office:Mac 2008
      • VibhuC812, on 03/07/2008, -0/+3Unfortunately, BlueTroll is right. Mac Office 2008 can't run this assuming it relies on macros.
        • colincornaby, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4I know I'll lose sleep at night knowing my Mac can't run the wide array of Excel games out there. /sarcasm
  • SPThom, on 03/07/2008, -1/+2Very weird, but cool.
  • linkin2, on 03/07/2008, -2/+4wasn't there a bug in excel involving flotation errors?
  • pnmoore, on 03/07/2008, -8/+3It's a trap!
  • pnmoore, on 03/07/2008, -2/+10That's no budget spreadsheet, it's the source code for Duke Nukem Forever!
  • MindTrigger, on 03/07/2008, -2/+60What a great tech article. Reminds me of the good old days of Digg when I signed up in 2005. You know, before Digg was attacked by MySpace and FaceBook users.
    • RevoFM, on 03/07/2008, -1/+6And the lolcats. Damn lolcats.
    • solistus, on 03/07/2008, -2/+11Yeah, damn those kids with their myfacing and hip hopping and all the newfangled trends...

      Seriously, Digg is fine. The only differences are 1) now there's a ***** ton of content of all types, not just the geeky sections, and 2) every time a 'geeky' story makes front page you get a bunch of comments like yours waxing nostalgic for the 'good old days' when Digg was 100% populated with stories like these. What kind of geek bemoans expanded content submission and page hits? The fact that it's now "mainstream" to use Web 2.0 social linking sites like Digg doesn't excite you?
      • MindTrigger, on 03/08/2008, -0/+2Actually, I was just being tragically sarcastic, but you can take it seriously and spew a yawner comment if you wish.
        • domdunc, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3Haha, best put down ever written on the internet.
    • celkin, on 03/08/2008, -0/+3and the 4chan newfags
  • delfin1, on 03/07/2008, -0/+5excel gaming is so 1998
  • Nextrix, on 03/07/2008, -0/+2I remember using the same data table model using Visual Basics 6.0 back at high school (about 5 years ago) for a Zelda type based RPG game a group of us made. I even made a map editor application for it as well, but taking this to a 3D level is very impressive! Using the same system to render the charts is something I would have never though about back then.
  • Stopher, on 03/07/2008, -0/+5Tried it at home and it runs pretty fast. Then here at work it's much slower and it took me a while to realize I have a Core 2 Duo 2.66 at home and a 2.79 P4 here at work. You can really see the difference. This is a pretty good way to visually benchmark a system.
    • minigamer1896, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4It helps that Excel takes advantage of the extra processor(s).
  • rollerboy, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4wow i really don't know anything about game engines. i wish there were really simple game engines i could understand and use, that way i could understand them a little.
  • Licurgo, on 03/07/2008, -0/+1to run the cube just go to tools then security and then disable security and then go to macros and then run macro
  • pdxchris, on 03/07/2008, -0/+2that blows my mind!
  • Chassit, on 03/07/2008, -8/+2Too bad excel is a buggy piece of *****.
  • theYevvin, on 03/07/2008, -0/+5If I remember correctly, Insomniac Games first game "Disruptor" was written in Excel and it was a 3D FPS. The code base for that could be very interesting, i.e., mind numbing. I wonder if it's available anywhere.
  • BirdCatcher, on 03/07/2008, -1/+2In college i learned how to create 3D objects in Maple
  • rjw617, on 03/07/2008, -0/+1thought he meant that retarded easter egg pinball game in excel...pleasant surprise
  • pchelperonline, on 03/07/2008, -0/+2You can learn something new everyday here on Digg!
  • heypetray, on 03/07/2008, -0/+3This is crazy! I was just thinking about doing something like this at work today... Then I got on Digg instead. It must be a sign...
  • Greenleif, on 03/07/2008, -3/+2Try out golf, impressive for Excel, just watch out for your boss..
    http://www.filefactory.com/file/33194d
    • teh_techie, on 03/07/2008, -0/+5this is not impressive for excel... this is a flash game embedded in an excel document.

      You lose for not spotting that.
  • cdemi, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4anti-aliasing ftw
  • zoomtechtv, on 03/07/2008, -0/+4Insomniac Games used Excel on the first game they made. They did not have the money for a SGI machine.
  • bob3, on 03/07/2008, -6/+1But, can it play Crysis?
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 65 of 65 discussions
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.