Modelling in Excel

[Anonymous]

Can anybody recommend a good resource/guide to modelling games in Excel?

I’ve been looking around at game designer jobs and the ability to model and manage games in excel keeps cropping up as a requirement.

I’m a bit confused about what they mean.

Is it a functional document (which would be grand) or is it some way to make a quick mock-up (which could possibly be done in something else?) Visual Basic fun?

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that it is the ability to simulate the games data driven systems.

Example: Designing an RTS you could feed in all the values, costs, speed, damage, health etc of both armies.

Then you can hit go and see who will win.

You can then use this to quickly balance the values to something fairer.

Now, I think thats what you do and why you do it.
But I don’t know myself HOW you do it.
I would imagine its all sorts of fancy excel sums…
I too would love a good guide…

[Anonymous]

I’ve actually used this in prototyping in the real world.

The code to read in CSV file is quicker and easier than implementing an XML parser.

I can create a nice interface in on one sheet of in a spreadsheet program that the designers can tweak game balance all day and all night ;). Using scripting or similar you can make this have a nice GUI. This generates the data.

The other sheet is just a set of numbers or key value pairs sheet can be exported into a CSV file that the game loads.

Now I can get on with fixing bugs while the designer designs :)..

[Anonymous]

Ah ok, that would make sense. Most of the companies that have required it have had some sort of social gaming element and no doubt lots of sprawling databases.

Definitely seems like a skill I need to develop. Early stages of designing a resource management type game, and this sounds essential (as opposed to my expectations of long nights with a calculator and scribbles)

[Author]

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