Mercer: Exploring the Fallout-Inspired RPG Inside Microsoft Excel

Mercer is a free, fan-made post-apocalyptic RPG that turns Microsoft Excel into its game engine. Instead of opening a conventional 2D or 3D game, the player moves a party across a color-coded grid, follows quests, manages character statistics, and fights turn-based battles inside a macro-enabled workbook.

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The project is commonly circulated under the file-style name Fallout-like-excel-rpg v 1-1. Its in-game setting is called Mercer, and it was created by Dynamic Pear, also identified in some coverage as The Storyteller. It is best understood as an inventive tribute to early Fallout, Wasteland, and tabletop RPGs—not as an official Fallout release or a replacement for a commercial role-playing game.

What is Mercer?

Mercer uses a spreadsheet workbook as a compact RPG environment. Excel cells act as map tiles, formatting provides much of the visual presentation, formulas and controls track game state, and macro functionality helps turn the workbook into an interactive program.

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That approach came from practical constraints. Dynamic Pear reportedly had substantial Excel experience but did not have the time or specialized game-development skills normally associated with building a conventional video game. Rather than treating that limitation as a barrier, the project uses Excel itself as the creative medium.

The result is deliberately modest in scope. Reports describe eight quests across the Mercer region, along with exploration and turn-based combat. The available information does not establish a precise completion time, a branching-ending structure, or a complete walkthrough, so Mercer is more accurately described as a compact adventure than as a sprawling open-world campaign.

A post-bomb wasteland with its own fiction

Mercer takes place in the 145th year of a second age after catastrophic bombing. The opening premise casts the player as a former adventurer who has settled into retirement. That quiet life ends when a woman from a shelter asks for help: the overseer of Shelter 7 has been kidnapped.

The player forms a party and returns to adventuring, traveling through a region containing shelters, vaults, settlements, farming areas, plains, mountains, water, and bomb craters. Locations reported in the workbook and accompanying coverage include:

• Beggar’s Hole
• Carnage
• Swadlincote
• Garen’s Rest
• Bracklewhyte
• Slumberville
• Haling Cove
• Faversham
• Vault 7 and Vault 11

Those names and the Mercer setting make the project Fallout-inspired, but they are not part of official Bethesda or ZeniMax Fallout continuity. Mercer has its own story, locations, and fictional history.

How the Excel map works

The main map is top-down and cell-based. The party moves through a region represented by colored spreadsheet cells rather than by hand-drawn scenery or animated terrain. Settlements and shelters are shown in purple, traversable terrain and routes use green shades, and the player party is represented in red.

Excel’s grid imposes obvious visual limits: the map is blocky, abstract, and closer to a diagram than to a conventional game world. That limitation is also the central design idea. The workbook makes the player see ordinary cells as spaces to cross, locations to investigate, and hazards to navigate.

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Its exploration lineage sits between several older RPG traditions. The post-apocalyptic premise and scavenger-style atmosphere invite comparisons with Fallout, while the top-down scrolling and text-heavy presentation can recall Wasteland. Movement is not meant to simulate the open-ended visual exploration of modern RPGs; it is a stripped-down map adventure built around position, destinations, and written encounters.

The basic gameplay loop

Mercer’s reported gameplay loop is straightforward:

1. Read the opening situation and assemble the party. The initial objective centers on the missing overseer from Shelter 7.
2. Move across the cell-based map. Travel between settlements, shelters, vaults, and other terrain types.
3. Investigate locations and advance the quests. The game contains eight quests distributed around the Mercer region.
4. Manage the party. Character names, classes, health, levels, and related statistics are displayed in the workbook.
5. Resolve hostile encounters. Battles use turn-based, dice-like calculations rather than real-time action.
6. Level characters and continue exploring. Progression is statistics-based, although the available reporting does not confirm a full perk tree, crafting system, faction system, or inventory economy.

The workbook reportedly includes an option to disable battles. That makes Mercer somewhat more flexible than its premise might suggest: players who mainly want to inspect the map and story can reduce the combat burden, while players interested in the RPG rules can leave encounters enabled.

Combat: a simplified tabletop-style system

Combat is turn-based and borrows broad ideas from tabletop role-playing rather than reproducing the official Fallout tabletop rules. Reported mechanics include initiative, attack rolls, armor or armor-class thresholds, attack range, character statistics, health, enemy waves, and leveling.

Initiative and enemy waves

Initiative determines the order in which characters and enemies act. Encounters can reportedly contain between one and five enemies per wave, giving fights a little more structure than a single attack-and-counterattack exchange.

Attack rolls and armor thresholds

Attacks use dice-like probability. An attack succeeds when the relevant roll reaches the enemy’s armor threshold and fails when it does not. The exact implementation is spreadsheet-based, so the player is interacting with calculated results rather than physically rolling dice.

Distance and attack type

Melee and ranged attacks are differentiated by distance. Position therefore matters even within the game’s abstract presentation: the party is not simply choosing an attack from a static menu with no spatial context.

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What the combat is—and is not

It is reasonable to call Mercer’s combat Dungeons & Dragons-like in its use of initiative, attack rolls, armor thresholds, and statistics. It is not accurate to describe it as an implementation of Modiphius’s official Fallout tabletop system. The official tabletop game uses the publisher’s 2d20 rules, while Mercer is a simplified Excel RPG with its own reported mechanics.

Party creation and progression

The opening workbook material includes a protagonist and a second party member. Reported selectable classes include:

• Slugger
• Ranger
• Thrower

The character interface tracks names, classes, health, level, and other game-state information. Characters improve through statistics-based leveling, giving the adventure a recognizable RPG progression layer despite its spreadsheet presentation.

There is not enough verified information to attribute a complete skill tree, perk system, crafting, detailed inventory economy, or faction reputation system to Mercer. Those are common features in larger post-apocalyptic RPGs, but assuming that Mercer includes them would overstate what the documented project provides.

How to run the game in Excel

Mercer is distributed as a macro-enabled .xlsm workbook. That file type is significant: Microsoft uses it for Excel workbooks that contain VBA macros.

For the safest compatibility expectation, use the desktop version of Microsoft Excel on Windows or Mac. Microsoft’s compatibility guidance says:

• Excel for the web can open a workbook containing macros, but it cannot create, run, or edit VBA macros. The workbook must be opened in the desktop app for macro functionality.
• Excel on mobile may open some .xlsm files, but VBA functions do not run there. A phone or tablet should not be treated as a fully supported way to play.
• Desktop Excel is the appropriate choice when the workbook depends on interactive controls or VBA behavior.

Before opening any macro-enabled workbook, consider where it came from. Active content can carry security risks. Download the file only from a source you trust, scan it according to your normal security practice, and do not enable macros merely because Excel displays a prompt. If you cannot verify the source or do not understand why the workbook needs macros, leave them disabled.

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In practical terms, the setup is less like installing a game and more like opening an interactive document:

1. Obtain the workbook from a source you trust.
2. Confirm that the file is an .xlsm workbook.
3. Open it in the desktop Excel application rather than Excel for the web or mobile Excel.
4. Review Excel’s security warning and the workbook’s instructions.
5. Enable macros only if you trust the file and accept the risk.
6. Use the workbook’s controls and instructions to start the party and begin exploring.

The exact buttons and prompts can vary by Excel edition, operating system, and security settings, so no single set of menu labels should be treated as universal.

Is Mercer an official Fallout game?

No. Mercer is a free fan project inspired by early post-apocalyptic computer RPGs. It is not an official Bethesda or ZeniMax game, is not presented as part of the official Fallout continuity, and is not sold as a conventional commercial release through a game storefront.

That distinction matters for both expectations and terminology. Calling it a “Fallout Excel game” communicates the inspiration, but “Fallout-inspired Excel RPG” is more precise. Its own setting is Mercer, and its own fiction includes places such as Shelter 7 and Vault 11.

Mercer compared with the official Fallout tabletop RPG

Readers who enjoy the premise but want a more traditional group role-playing experience may prefer the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. It provides official Fallout lore, character options, creatures, encounter tools, and a complete tabletop framework.

It is not required to play Mercer, and the two products do not use the same rules. Mercer’s combat is a compact, spreadsheet-driven system with reported D&D-like elements; Modiphius’s official game uses the 2d20 system. A physical polyhedral dice set is likewise unnecessary for Mercer because its calculations take place in Excel, though tabletop players may want dice for a separate role-playing session.

Why a spreadsheet is the point

Mercer is compelling less because it can compete with a modern RPG and more because it demonstrates how software constraints can become a design language. A familiar productivity tool supplies:

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• cells that function as map tiles;
• color and formatting that communicate terrain and locations;
• formulas that track health, statistics, and outcomes;
• controls and macros that provide interaction;
• randomization for attacks and other RPG-style calculations;
• text and workbook pages for narrative content; and
• a visible game-state record that the player can inspect directly.

Most games hide their underlying systems behind a dedicated interface. Mercer exposes the machinery. The grid is visibly a grid, the numbers remain close to the surface, and the map’s roughness is inseparable from the tool that created it. That makes the project a useful example of spreadsheet-as-software experimentation as well as a playable fan tribute.

Who should try it?

Mercer is a good fit for players who enjoy:

• early Fallout and Wasteland-style exploration;
• text-heavy adventures and abstract maps;
• turn-based combat with visible statistics;
• unusual game formats and experimental interfaces;
• Excel projects that push a productivity application beyond its normal purpose; and
• shorter, self-contained fan projects rather than large commercial campaigns.

It is a poor match for someone expecting animated graphics, modern real-time combat, a fully voiced story, a large open world, or the content scale of a mainline Fallout game. The workbook format is not a technical workaround for a conventional game; it is the experience.

Bottom line

Mercer turns Microsoft Excel into a surprisingly complete little post-apocalyptic RPG: explore a cell-based wasteland, pursue eight reported quests, build a small party, and resolve battles through initiative, attack rolls, armor thresholds, distance, and leveling. Its rough visuals and limited scope are deliberate consequences of the format, not evidence that it is trying to be a modern Fallout clone.

Use desktop Excel, treat the .xlsm file as potentially active content, and keep the project’s status clear: Mercer is a free, Fallout-inspired fan experiment with its own setting—not an official Fallout game and not the same product as the official Fallout tabletop RPG.