Arena.xlsm was a genuine, standalone role-playing game delivered as a Microsoft Excel macro-enabled workbook. Cary Walkin, a Toronto chartered accountant and MBA student, used Excel worksheets, formulas and VBA macros to create turn-based combat, randomized equipment and enemies, spells, dungeons, bosses and multiple endings. Contemporary reports in April 2013 described it as a playable release developed primarily during evenings over roughly five months—not simply a spreadsheet displaying a few game-like calculations.
Excel was the tool Cary Walkin already understood
Walkin said the project began while he was taking an MBA course in advanced spreadsheet modelling. After class, he experimented with Excel’s buttons and macros and realized that the program could accept an input, calculate a response and display a new state—the basic loop behind many games.
His motivation was partly practical and partly playful. He knew spreadsheets from his accounting work and studies, but wanted to build something more entertaining than option-pricing valuation models. The available reports identify him as a chartered accountant based in Toronto and an MBA candidate at Toronto’s Schulich School of Business at the time; they do not establish his current profession.
Walkin estimated that he worked about two to three hours per night and that the project took approximately five months to grow from experiments into a full game he could release online. The interview places his recognition that a complete game was possible around October 2012. Those are his approximate recollections, not a precisely documented production schedule. GamesBeat’s report and Digitally Downloaded’s interview provide the contemporary accounts.
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What was Arena.xlsm?
The name describes the file format as much as the game. The .xlsm extension identifies an Excel workbook that can contain VBA macros. The game was designed for play inside Excel, with the workbook serving as interface, data store and runtime host. The interview specifically identifies Excel 2007 as an important target environment.
It was a turn-based RPG built around exploration, combat, equipment, spells and replayability. Contemporary coverage reported the following scale:
| Element | What contemporary coverage reported | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment | GamesBeat described 1,000 random items; the interview described more than 1,000 weapon variants | The reports use different categories, so these figures should not be merged into one specification |
| Enemies | More than 2,000 random enemy variants | Reported by the 2013 coverage |
| Spells | 31 | Reported in the interview introduction |
| Dungeons | Procedurally generated dungeons | Reported in the interview introduction |
| Bosses | Eight boss encounters | Reported by GamesBeat |
| Endings | Four | Reported by both contemporary sources |
These counts are reported figures from the period, not independently audited specifications. Their importance is less about a leaderboard number than about the project’s ambition: Walkin used a business application to assemble enough interacting systems for a substantial RPG.
How a spreadsheet became a game engine
Arena.xlsm was not made from formulas alone. Walkin said the coding was done with macros, meaning VBA procedures responded to the player and changed workbook state. In practical terms, the loop looked like this:
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- The player clicks a control, such as an attack or spell action.
- A VBA macro reads the current character, enemy and inventory values.
- The code performs damage, accuracy, effects and random-number calculations.
- Cells, controls and combat text are updated to show the result.
- The workbook waits for the next turn.
This is a conceptual model rather than a reconstruction of Walkin’s exact code. Excel supplied useful building blocks: calculations for statistics and damage, tables or worksheets for game data, random functions, and clickable controls that could call macros. A spreadsheet expert could prototype those systems without first learning a commercial engine’s scene, asset or build pipeline.
Excel did not automatically provide a conventional game engine. The workbook still needed custom logic for state management, presentation and progression, and it was dependent on the host application’s controls and macro environment. Its strength was that RPG actions are discrete state transitions; its weakness was that the same architecture is poorly suited to continuous animation, sophisticated input devices or portable standalone builds.
Why the game was turn-based
Turn-based play was a compatibility decision as well as a design choice. Walkin connected the format to Excel 2007, where waiting for a macro to finish and then redrawing the sheet was far more practical than maintaining a conventional real-time rendering loop.
In the 2013 interview, he said Excel 2010 could support real-time animations and pointed to examples such as Missile Command and Tower Defense. That was a historical comment about what could be demonstrated then, not a current guarantee about every Excel edition or operating system. The turn structure let Arena.xlsm concentrate on decisions, calculations and readable feedback instead of frame-rate-sensitive action.
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Walkin’s stated influences
Walkin cited The Binding of Isaac as a major game influence and the Extra Credits web series as an influence on his thinking about game design. Those references describe inspiration, not an adaptation: the available accounts present Arena.xlsm as his own Excel-based RPG.
What happened after the initial release?
Digitally Downloaded reported that version 1.1 arrived on March 29, 2013. That update added a “Collections” feature involving collectible Easter eggs. At the time of the interview, Walkin was discussing version 1.2 with additional terrain types, enemies and arenas.
The interview records a plan, not a confirmed shipment. Neither that report nor the available GamesBeat coverage establishes that version 1.2 was released, that development continued, or that the project received modern support.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can you still play Arena.xlsm today?
There is no verified current compatibility statement for the original workbook. The historical reports targeted Excel 2007 and discussed Excel 2010; they do not confirm behavior in Microsoft 365 desktop, Excel for Mac, Excel for the web, mobile Excel or current security configurations.
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The contemporary download trail includes the historical release post and the historical download page. Their present availability and file integrity are not established here. A link that once worked is not proof that a downloadable, unmodified workbook remains online.
Problems a modern player may encounter
- Excel may block macros or open the file in Protected View because it came from the internet.
- ActiveX or legacy form controls may behave differently or be unsupported.
- Excel for the web and mobile editions generally do not provide the same VBA execution environment as desktop Excel.
- Organizational antivirus or macro policies may prevent the workbook from running.
- Changes between Office editions can break links, controls or assumptions made for Excel 2007.
If you find a copy
- Obtain it only from a source you can verify as author-controlled or otherwise trustworthy.
- Scan the download before opening it, and do not enable macros in an untrusted workbook.
- Use an isolated, supported desktop Excel installation rather than assuming a browser or phone app will run it.
- Expect to troubleshoot security prompts and control compatibility; successful opening is not evidence that every feature works as it did in 2013.
Why the project still matters
Arena.xlsm is interesting because the novelty and the engineering are inseparable. Excel’s familiar operations—tables, calculations, buttons and macros—map naturally to an RPG’s statistics and turn-by-turn state changes. Walkin’s choice also imposed clear boundaries: the game could be ambitious in systems and content, but it had to fit the timing, controls and presentation of a spreadsheet workbook.
The project is therefore neither proof that Excel is a universal game engine nor a mere novelty file. It is a case study in designing around constraints: use a tool you know, choose a game structure compatible with it, and let the platform’s ordinary features perform extraordinary work.
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