Map Generator v 0.4 Mountains and Forests

Without Conditional format:With Conditional format:WOOP! I tried to add grids, but realised that if will interfere with rivers. So I removed it. I kinda like it with grid on tho, so I might reimplement it in the futureHi there!

So I finally managed to wrap my head around the mountain concept, and with some trial and error it finally seems to work properly. I have to commend Excel 2007 for the conditional format function. It's easy to visualise a bunch of numbers when you put colour to it.

I added mountains by randomly scattering 130 dots on the grass tiles, then I connected the ones that only had 1 tile between them, and grew it from there before I removed all single mountain tiles. This seems to generate mountain ranges. Lucky me, it's not the first time I have stumbled upon a decent solution by chance. Not the last either I suspect.

Once I got the mountains up and running I used the same concept on the forest. It turned out pretty good i think.

So next I might add a tropical sone and equator for adding desert and jungle.
I don't know where i'm going with this, but it looks more and more like a certan strategy game.

-eArtist

Map Generator v 0.3 Beaches and Polar Circles

Hi there!

Ok I thought this was a finished project, but I was wrong. This is fun when I can only change a small bit of code to produce very different maps.

Removed all the single shallow water tiles
I added more structure to the sand tiles, and also added polar circles.

I am still pondering how to add mountains and rivers.

-eArtist

Hindenburg Defender v 0.85

Hi there!

A rift in the time space continium caused Hindenburg to be filled with Helium instead of Hydrogen... So time and space tries to correct it's mistake by sending an army of unlikely kamikaze planes to bring it down. Fortunately you "The Red Baron" is protecting Hindenburg.

This is a classic sidescroller shoother in Excel made with VBA. There's currently 2 bosses in there game that spawns after 20 planes or so. Between bosses there are small airplanes you need to shoot down.
The goal of the game is to defend Hindenburg from other airplanes that try and crash into it, or the bosses who tries to blow it up with rockets and stones.
It's made for Excel 2007 and I can almost guarentee you it wont work in any other Excel at the moment.

This has been a very fun prodject, and I have found many crappy perfomance problems in Excel thanks to this prodject. Mainly cause of cut and paste operations. The biggest lesson from this prodject is probably that next time i will make a buffer sheet to enhance performance.

The consept is that every piece of graphics is saved as a range object then copy/paste-destination to active range. Active range is determined by the arrow keys (Player input). If something crashes into Hindenburg then it gets destroyed. Hindenburg has 3 lives.

-eArtist

Map Generator v 0.2 Land and Water

Hi there!

So my map generator is finally starting to output decent maps. Every map is randomly generated. It's basicly circles on random locations overlapping eachother for continents and single circles for islands. The map is also tiled.

Formula for generating islands is pretty straight forward:

for d = 1 to degrees
radius = Cint(rnd() * 15) + 1
x = centerX + Cint(radius * cos(degrees))
y = centerY + Cint(radius * sin(degrees) )
array(x,y) = 3
next

To generate a little randomness I vary radius while drawing the circle.

Degrees is how detailed I want the island. If degrees is too high(1000++) then the islands turn out to be perfect circles. if degrees is very low(10 - 30) islands look like half finished spider webs. So I have degrees somewhat low(50 - 70) so that I get the spiderweb look, and then I trim it down based on the neighbouring tiles. Everything is generated in an array before I write it to sheet.

I would like to add rivers and mountains.
I think this is a finished prodject for now though.

- eArtist

Welcome

Hi there!

My name is Rune Vien Meier.
This blog is about programming game features.
Anything from collition detection to map generators to physics and anything else thats fun to implement in a game.

I am a gamer by heart, and have been gaming ever since my neighbor got his ATARI game system.

I am now 30 years old with over 20 years gaming experience, and like every other gamer I KNOW what makes a good game. (Atleast I like to think so)

I recently started programming VBA and since I don't know any other programming language I have started to make games in Excel.

I hope to move over to C# or Java ASAP, but until I get a grasp on it. I will keep programming in Excel.

Me and my bestest buddies.

From left: Tarjei Gylseth, Rune Vien Meier, Jan Ove Olsen

-eArtist