CurseOfTheManor.xls
A downloadable game
This is my entry for the Neo-Interactives anti-productivity jam. The challenge was to create a work of interactive fiction using office productivity software or other software not normally suited to the task of creating IF.
The obvious way to make a parser-based adventure in Excel would be to use macros. But Excel makes you click through so many ominous warnings before you can run macros in a downloaded spreadsheet that I figured no-one would ever play it. So the game is simply made with formulas. An awful lot of convoluted formulas.
You need a relatively recent version of Excel for this to work. It definitely won't work with Excel 2019 or earlier because they lack dynamic array formulas. It also won't work in Google Sheets or LibreOffice. If the response to every command is "I don't know that verb", your Excel version is too old.
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Nice game. It's not an issue, since the game is so short, but I should warn other players that it's easy to get stuck in an unwinnable state ;)
I don’t have Excel, but I crossed my fingers and tried it in Numbers (Mac).
Unfortunately it thought all my commands (even “x”) were too many words, haha.
So cool that you managed this, though! The next time I’m near a PC, I’ll give it a shot! My brother isn’t an IF person at all, but he uses Excel a lot for work. I might sent it his way too, just for fun. :)
Honestly had so much fun and felt like a real explorer, I had to draw out a map and everything to keep track. Awesome job! (•ᴗ• )
How you pulled this off is totally beyond me. Good stuff!