‘Fallout But In Excel’ does exactly what you think it does, by letting you play a brand new, Fallout-inspired game, in Microsoft Excel.
The Fallout franchise is seeing a surge in popularity at the moment thanks to the recent release of the incredible Amazon Prime TV show, which has also seen the enduring Fallout 76 welcome a million new players to its servers six years after its original release.
Fallout fever has seemingly gripped the populous then, but how do you get your Fallout fix when you’re at work? Fallout But In Excel might be the answer.
Players can explore a post-apocalyptic land called ‘Mercer’ in an Excel document that looks like any other spreadsheet at a passing glance but contains the series trademark questing and battling mechanics.
Quests see players navigating around a colourful tab of cells, imitating an overworld map, and battling employs some evergreen Dungeons and Dragons tabletop rules during turn-based skirmishes.
The Excel-based adventure is the brainchild of game creator ‘The Storyteller’, who even created a teaser trailer for the ambitious project which sets the scene beautifully.
Players looking to explore their own Excel wasteland can download Fallout But In Excel for free now.
My Excel-lent Quest
Of course I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take Fallout But In Excel for a spin myself.
After a very swift download of the 2.39MB Excel document, I was greeted by a helpful ‘Intro’ tab that provides backstory to the world of Mercer and my primary quest to recover Shelter 7’s Overseer from kidnappers.
I dutifully renamed the protagonist to Theo and my accompanying party member to Riku, in honour of my faithful canine companion who is my real-life equivalent to Fallout’s iconic Dogmeat.
Clicking the cell to start a new campaign took me to the map screen. My party, illustrated by the bright red dot, moved across Mercer using the Map Movement buttons until we reached Fallout But In Excel’s first settlement of Garden’s Rest.
A Macro popped up with some town information informing me that a group of Raiders had recently passed through with a female hostage and were heading towards the South-East. I immediately veered to the South-West, continuing my typical Fallout playstyle of doing all the side quests before tackling my main objective. My choice to divert made even easier by the allure of the nearby town ‘Slumberville’, which I thought sounded jolly nice indeed.
Unfortunately, no sooner had I stepped outside of Garen’s Rest when Riku and I were attacked by Raiders, and I was taken to the battle tab in the Excel workbook. After a tense Dungeons & Dragons-style skirmish, the Raiders sadly overwhelmed Riku and myself and it was Game Over… for now anyway.
My next quest may be the hardest one of all; convincing Brandon to let me produce a full review of Fallout But In Excel.
