Excel Tips and Tricks

At GDC 2014, I gave a talk titled "Spreadsheet Skills for Game Designers." I've collected the resources from that talk here. It was inspired by an article I wrote on Excel tips and tricks for the May 2012 Game Career Guide issue of Game Developer magazine. Since it's tricky to include large Excel spreadsheets in a 2-3 page article or 50 minute talk, I've included some supplimentary material here.

Lottso Express data

Plural Word generator

The Sims 3 Careers

Ratchet and Clank 3

Pixie Hollow Fairy Street generator

Live Demo (this was the spreadsheet I created during the talk)

Ira Fay Spreadsheet Skills for Game Designers GDC14 slides


For my Introduction to Game Design class, I created two different levels of Excel puzzles, which I've included below for anyone who is interested. If you don't have Excel, you can import these files into Google Spreadsheets and still complete them. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me or check out my main site.

Excel Silver level challenges

Excel Gold level challenges