The Project
Have you ever thought, what can Excel do? I mean, what can it really do?
Most modern workforces still heavily rely on Excel as a driving force for maintaining records and running their businesses.
Well, someone had to do something to make Excel seem even more absolutely ridiculous. Because the above photo is common satire among programmers. Surely Excel couldn’t do something that belonged in actual game software. Right? Something beyond XLOOKUP or its abused and orphaned child VLOOKUP. Thus, I wondered resolutely, is it possible to make a game in Excel? And Asteroids in Excel, was born.
The Problem
It’s late 2025 when this project came to mind. Excel isn’t the software of choice when you’re considering building a working game. I mean, not for the sane, or the institutionalized programmer. You’d probably turn to Python if you’re the run-of-the-mill compsci student.
This wasn’t really an experiment in game development. It was an experiment in what happens when someone with enough technical fluency to understand a system, but not years of specialized experience in its programming language, gets access to a capable AI coding partner.
What I Built
GPT 5(.0), in its heyday, (the OG, pre-GPT 5.6) was promising. Across about 20-30 different prompts, it could effectively build something so close to reality, just based on prompting. Of course, I didn’t think it could generate an .xlsm file on its own, so there was some minimal coding experience required, and a basic understanding of how to turn on developer mode in Excel, turn off all those alarm bells about enabling macros, and… well, trusting that AI won’t build a RAT (remote access trojan) into my computer. That’s a discussion for another day.
Between all the prompting, pasting in error codes, digging through module code and evaluating where I should insert or remove code fragments and fix broken function references… Asteroids was born. I don’t consider myself a VBA Code editor, but high school wasn’t that far away learning visual basic, and this was just a proof of concept.
The Interesting Part
This project was truly compelling and arguably the first-of-its-kind. In fact, I’m pretty sure I get to wear the crown for the first person that’s made Asteroids work in Excel – at least one that is publicly accessible, and that you actually have the ability to see and work with, rather than hearing from a seasoned programmer, “Oh yea, I built that before.” Photos/videos or it didn’t happen. 😉 (And I’ll correct my post!) At least as much as companies claim to produce software that the hearts and souls of the developers who made it poured out into it as work for hire. Because AI really built most of it; I just orchestrated it, convinced it several times that what it was doing was wrong, and taught it that I really did mean to make this absurdity into reality. I guess I get that much credit.
Outcome
This hobby project is alive and well. And serves as the cornerstone of my AI-curiosity, and a journey that has carried me into the bleeding edge of capabilities of AI.
Current State
This project is complete, and demonstrates some truly phenomenal Excel madness. Yes, most of this is probably built primarily on VBA code, so can you really call it Excel? Debatable. Excel is the horse riding off into the distance, carrying a load that would make the nerdiest compsci student proud, however. And Asteroids lives on in a compact deliverable that can exist on your computer without having to be installed. ’80s babies, you’re welcome.