We don’t normally think of video games as something that would warrant the use of any sort of office software. Games are played to relax and have fun, but some people’s idea of fun involves a level of challenge. If this sounds like you, having a spreadsheet to track progress and in-game resources can help.
Spreadsheets aren’t something every gamer needs to utilize, but they’re useful within certain contexts. Tycoon and simulation games are an obvious case, but even cozier titles such as Animal Crossing and Stardew could benefit from opening up Excel. Here are a few games where using a spreadsheet just makes sense.
9
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Animal Crossing has always had a lot of collectibles, but New Horizons manages to outdo most of the other games in the series in this regard. Sure, the game has trackers for fish, fossils, and other museum collectibles, but some of the more niche items in the game go unmonitored.
Have you found every color variation of your favorite furniture? Do the details of the game’s flower breeding system seem too hard to commit to memory? Perhaps you need to track the turnip market or figure out the best money-making scheme. All of these and more can be handled with the help of spreadsheets.
8
Satisfactory
Simulation games, by their very nature, tend to involve a lot of minute details that can easily overwhelm someone new to the genre. Running a factory in real life is also a daunting task that requires you to keep track of multiple (both figurative and literal) moving parts.
Using a spreadsheet for these types of games just makes sense. Business owners of all stripes use spreadsheets in real life, so why not apply that same mentality to your game? Doing so will make it much easier to track your resources when you’re not playing so you can come up with plans to maximize productivity.
The Football Manager games are the spiritual cousin to the much older pastime of fantasy football. It’s fairly intuitive to take cues from the latter to make the former a more fun experience. Fantasy football enthusiasts use spreadsheets all the time, so why not do the same when playing Football Manager?
Spreadsheets are an excellent tool for tracking the stats of your team’s players. While you might have a general idea of how well or poorly a particular athlete performs, having a spreadsheet handy will help you compare more minute differences. It also enables you to compare players’ real-life stats with those in the game for some fun trivia.
6
Book Of Hours
Deckbuilders, by their nature, require you to keep track of multiple moving parts all at once. Book of Hours (and, to a lesser extent, its sibling Cultist Simulator) adds another layer of complexity to the genre by integrating your cards into its narrative. With each deck you build, a world of narrative possibilities unfolds.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with how much stuff there is in this game, especially since its pace is pretty fast. Using a spreadsheet can help you plan what to do with the cards you’re dealt at a more manageable speed.
5
Dwarf Fortress
It probably doesn’t help that the original freeware version of this game looks a little bit like a spreadsheet already. Dwarf Fortress might be an old game, but it boasts a truly massive amount of detail in terms of what dwarves and resources you have to manage.
Having a tracking system out-of-game can mean a world of difference when it comes to how long your fortress ultimately lasts. Being able to plan and track resources without risking losing hours of progress means your dwarves can live to see another day, making your time spent in actual gameplay run more smoothly.
4
The Sims 4
While you might not think of The Sims 4 as the type of game that requires a spreadsheet, longer save files might require the use of some sort of tracking tool. How many collectibles and heirlooms has your legacy family accumulated over the ages? Without a reference tool, you might never know.
Spreadsheets also come in handy when you’re attempting certain challenges, such as the 100 baby challenge. From finances to eligible Sims for your Sim to date, the tracking possibilities are pretty much endless. Certain mods, such as those that alter the randomly assigned townie names, also require spreadsheets to create.
3
Crusader Kings 3
Picture this: you decide to jumpstart your heir’s career in politics by betrothing them to the heir of a nearby kingdom. The parents of your child’s fiancé then get themselves involved in a war, and as their ally, you’re forced to help out. Except you get your butt kicked because there were just too many resources to manage.w
The real-time strategy elements of this game can be daunting for those new to the genre, so it’s useful to have some means of tracking your territory. Making a spreadsheet will help keep you organized while you track alliances, monitor the health of your kingdom, and manage your military units.
2
Stardew Valley
You just decided to create a new save in Stardew Valley, and you haven’t romanced Penny yet; why not give it a try? During the summer, you gift her a lovely bunch of grapes, only to discover she can’t stand them. Perhaps it’s a good idea to build some sort of reference tool to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Apart from tracking villager likes and dislikes, spreadsheets can also assist you once you gain access to the cellar. There’s no in-game tool to track how long your wines have been aging, so you’ll need to do that on your own. With a spreadsheet handy, you’ll never prematurely empty your casks again.
1
Planet Zoo
Planet Zoo is an excellent tycoon game that requires you to manage both your animals and your finances with an excruciating amount of detail. If you want to plan out your zoo a little more efficiently, there’s no reason not to open up Excel and get working.
Is your zoo utilizing its budget efficiently? A spreadsheet will help you keep track of your expenses. Want to make sure your animals don’t eat each other? You could make a sheet that tracks every species’ preferred diet and what animals they get along with.
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