6 Iconic Games Recreated in Microsoft Excel | Dramel Notes

Excel is a savior in many ways. Formulas, functions, workbooks, and business intelligence are only some of its data processing powers. But what about those times where it is all too much, when you just want to relax, if even for a moment? Well, Excel still has you covered, genius software that it is.

We’re going to take a quick look at six games you can play without ever leaving the safe confines of Excel, meaning you can play when you work, and work when you play. Your boss may not thank us for this one!

1. 2048

Unless you were under a rock throughout the past year, you’ve likely encountered fiendishly addictive puzzle-game 2048. The single player puzzler built on previous iterations such as Threes, and 1024, was coded in one weekend by 19 year old Gabriele Cirulli. Unwilling to make money from “something he didn’t invent,” Cirulli uploaded free versions of 2048 for both iOS and Android.

You can now play 2048 in Excel, but utilizing the full spectrum of Excel tools to improve your game. This means you can track your moves to better plan your next game, as well as the option to save your progress at any moment for resumption when the boss has left the building.

Quite fantastically, Redditor Krzychu81 developed an ultra-stealth version with “highly advanced cloaking mechanisms to camouflage itself as financial statements.”

Download the original Spreadsheet1.com version here, or the highly advanced stealth version here. Please note the final link is a direct download for an .xls file.

2. Monopoly

One of the world’s best loved property management board games comes to Excel. It took developer Andrew Werner around 14 hours to create a Monopoly simulation for Excel, using programming language VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). True to form, the Monopoly simulator is capable of handling up to four players, with options for human or computer input.

To download Monopoly, click here.

3. EXLCOM

One should never underestimate the supreme power of the spreadsheet. XCOM comes to Excel in this top down rendition of the massively popular turn-based game.

EXLCOM is the result of Reddit user crruzi’s attempt to learn Visual Basic for work, and their efforts have retained some of the most iconic parts of XCOM gameplay, such as destructible walls. The game also includes a level editor, and though it is still in very early development, the XCOM port represents a quite amazing transportation.

The current version of EXLCOM works with a number of versions of Excel, but I cannot find a complete list as yet. You also need to update the VBA code to enable 64-bit compatibility. Creator crruzi posted this fix to the original Reddit thread:

“If you open VBA, and go to the first module (named FightBackgroundFunctions), could you replace the first line, which should be

Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

With

#If VBA7 And Win64 Then

Public Declare PtrSafe Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" ( _

ByVal dwMilliseconds As LongLong)

#Else

Public Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" ( _

ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

#End If

It should create the right command depending on your system.”

This should sort it all out for you. If not, the linked thread contains a number of other bug fixes for you to pore over.

4. Candy Number Crunch Saga

Take control of the stock market, specifically influencing the market price of Candy Crush Saga developer, King.com. This satirical take on the series “takes place in the not too distant future, where King.com (KING) has had a successful IPO,” placing the burden of boosting their stock market dreams into the stratosphere.

Candy Number Crunch Saga features over 35 news events directly affecting your stock price, includes a real-time stock ticker, and was the excellent result of around four day’s work by Canadian accountant Cary Walkin. Candy Number Crunchy Saga runs on PC Excel versions 2007, 2010, and 2013, and you can grab the download from here.

5. Champ Manager for MS-Excel

One of the world’s most addictive gaming franchises makes the jump into Excel. It makes sense really, as earlier versions of Championship Manager were essentially just spreadsheet interfaces (in fact, has much changed, bar tactics depth and what-not?), and this rendition of Champ Manager is just as one-click-more inducing as its peers.

You can play in the top four English leagues, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Champions League, as well as making transfers from the 3,000 player database. Suspensions and injuries seem to come quite easily, but it is also easy to bulk out a squad with youth players to mitigate.

You can download Champ Manager for MS-Excel via this thread, which also contains some bug fixes released by the author.

6. CellSweeper

CellSweeper is a dungeon crawling RPG-come-roguelike, based upon Minesweeper, built in Excel. It features six character classes, quick gameplay, and a seemingly reversed difficulty curve. Nonetheless, CellSweeper is more engaging than it appears, and I’m sure you’ll sink more time into it than you realize.

You can download CellSweeper here, or head to thewrongtools for more original Excel games from the same developer.

Bonus: Fraqcel

This isn’t entirely a game; more a psychedelic exploratory experience, or at least an attempt at one. Fracqel generates a sprawling fractal design for you to explore within Excel, allowing you to zoom in many hundreds of times to explore the depths of geometry. It features four fractal types, export functions for images, deep zooming capabilities, and customizable color palettes.

You can download Fraqcel right here.

Excel Games Roundup

There are thousands more outstanding Excel games. The games I’ve focused on here use a combination of VBA and handcrafted macros to deliver the fun, but Excel can also play host to a massive number of flash games. Be warned: the flash games are much harder to hide from other people!

If anything, these games show the amazing versatility of Excel and, if you’re caught playing while at work, you can at least point to your ever expanding knowledge of the inner-workings of Excel. If you want to find more Excel games, check out this mega-list. Happy Excelling!

What are your favorite Excel games? Do they make it easier to stealthily game in the workplace?

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5 Budget Apps You Should Use If You Really Want to Save Money | Dramel Notes

Want more money in your pocket every month? You only have two options: either make more money or save more money. That’s it. There are no magic formulas or shortcuts. However, the good news is that saving more money is much easier than making more money.

Budgeting is the key concept behind getting rich, and budgeting is easy — even if you’re bad at math! All it means is dedicating a portion of each paycheck to certain things (e.g. rent, food, entertainment) and sticking to those limits. If you can do that, you’ve won half the battle.

And with the right apps, this whole “saving more money” thing will require close to zero effort on your part. Here are the most effective budget apps currently available. Pick the one you like best.

1. You Need A Budget (Windows, Mac)

In all honesty, few budgeting apps can compare to the sheer greatness of You Need A Budget — and I say this as someone who doesn’t even use YNAB for my primary budgets. At least on paper, YNAB is pretty much the optimal budgeting solution.

But is YNAB the right budgeting solution for you? Maybe. Maybe not.

At its core, YNAB is a money manager. All you do is input all of your transactions as they happen — both incoming and outgoing — and the software will handle everything else for you: financial goals, progress reports, searching through records, annotations, etc.

However, there are two drawbacks. First, you have to do everything manually. This is good because it forces you to face your money habits head-on, but can be a nuisance doing it day in and day out. Second, the learning curve. It won’t be comfortable at first, but once you get the hang of it, YNAB becomes indispensible.

With YNAB, you will quickly find areas where you can slash your household expenses, thus saving you hundreds of dollars every month. And best of all, YNAB is 100% free for students! For everyone else, it costs $60.

2. Mint (Web, Android, iOS)

Mint is probably the most popular option on this list. It works like this: you let it connect to all of your financial accounts (e.g. banks, credit cards, loans, etc.) and it automatically pulls all of that data every day. Money tracking has never been easier than this.

Mint is invaluable for personal finance newbies, but especially useful When you’re trying to get out of debt. The automation makes it less stressful than something like YNAB, and the various graphs (e.g. net worth) are great for accurately tracking your progress.

But having used Mint for the past year, it’s clear that it isn’t perfect. Transactions can take between 24 to 48 hours to show up. Sometimes Mint isn’t able to connect to your bank or credit accounts, and this is more common than it should be. And while the web interface isn’t terrible, it can be confusing.

Fortunately, Mint is entirely free to use, so we can’t complain too much. Could it be better? Sure. Is it worth using even with these hiccups? Absolutely.

Read our beginner’s guide to getting started with Mint.

3. Mvelopes (Web, Android, iOS)

If a simple budget isn’t enough to keep you financially responsible, then we recommend that you try envelope budgeting: setting aside labelled envelopes (e.g. “Food”, “Clothes”, “Entertainment”) that restrict your spending to those categories.

But instead of using physical envelopes and cash, you should use Mvelopes, which is basically the digital equivalent.

Once you set up your account and limits, you can glance at the app at any time to see how much money you have left in each category. Before you make any purchases, check your Mvelopes status. If you don’t have enough, then you’ll have to wait for next month to roll around.

There’s a reason why Mvelopes was voted “Best Budgeting Site for Over-Spenders” in 2012: it really works. And that’s why we always mention it when we can, like on our list of the best finance apps for Android.

The Free plan can connect up to 4 bank accounts and provides 25 different envelopes while the Premier plan allows unlimited bank accounts and envelopes for $95 per year.

4. Goodbudget (Web, Android, iOS)

Goodbudget is similar to Mvelopes in that it provides another take on the “envelope budgeting” technique. Every time you receive a paycheck, you split it up into categories that keep you honest regarding your expenses and purchases.

While Mvelopes is more for single-person budgets, Goodbudget is slightly better for couples and households. A single budget can be synchronized across multiple devices and can even notify other persons when money is deducted from envelopes.

If Goodbudget sounds exactly like Mvelopes in every other way, that’s because it pretty much is. The underlying technique works, so it doesn’t really matter which one you choose. Go with the one that you feel more comfortable using.

As far as pricing, the Free plan supports 2 devices, 20 envelopes, and tracks 1 year of history while the Plus plan supports 5 devices, unlimited envelopes, and tracks 5 years of history for $45 per year.

5. EveryDollar (Web, iOS)

For the most part, EveryDollar is yet another budgeting app. It doesn’t come with any unique or revolutionary features, but it has a modern interface that’s extremely polished and all of its core functionality is executed well.

EveryDollar acts as a central dashboard for all of your financial activity. All you have to do is provide your bank details and create a quick budget in just a few minutes. Transactions are straightforward enough: input them manually or import from your banks.

The other notable feature of EveryDollar is the ability to set money goals, whether you’re trying to save up for vacation or pay down debt as quickly as possible. Again, it’s not a unique feature, but good in its execution.

Long story short, EveryDollar is a modest app that simplifies your life. No advanced features to fiddle with, no envelopes or categories to manage, and no ugly or outdated interfaces that get in the way. It excels as a quick budget and money manager.

Best of all, it’s completely free. As of writing this, there are no paid plans. The Android version of EveryDollar will be released in 2016.

Which Budget App Do You Use?

There’s one huge caveat for all of these apps: a budget can be helpful for seeing your financial situation and setting limits, but the most important step you can take is to start seeing money in a new way. It’s all about one mindset: kill debt, spend less.

That being said, there are plenty of other ways to save money: use an online savings account, find cheaper vacations, and reduce energy waste at home. And if you prefer spreadsheets to apps, use these awesome budget templates for Excel.

Do you use a budgeting app? If so, which one? Have any tips for building a money-saving attitude? Drop a comment below and share your wisdom with us!

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