Hi there, this is a Tetris game I made in Excel two years back. To start or to pause, click the yellow “sun” icon in the upper right corner of the chart. You can adjust the game level on the top side of the chart and also change the landscape by clicking “Landscape” on the bottom right.
The landscape will advance every time you score but the score will not change with speed. To my best recollection I give 100 points for one complete row, 200 for two, 600 for three and 1200 for four complete rows. If you pause you lose all the points (I did this because my son used to cheat by
freezing the game up and then boasting with a huge score), so better just slow it down to the speed of “1” and you can cheat as much as you want.
In the right lower side of the chart there is a panel for controlling the game. Underneath the panel there is a “Reset” label to which is assigned a game initialization macro. The game is not fully polished and due to the large amount of graphics it used to be a bit slow on my old PC. The new one flies.
I need to improve the speed. Oh, the bananas and pineapple are part of a scoring scheme I gave up but I left some on the screen to give the game a tropical flavor.
Don’t forget this is an office game so it should give you the relaxation needed by any bureaucrat. Enjoy! George
Hi, how do you make these because I am really interested,
Matthew
Hi George, amazing stuff that i tell everyone about. I am sure you coud do this if you haven’t already, but have you ever made a Rubix Cube solver where you can pick how your messed up cube looks and it shows you how to spin the sections of the cube to solve it step by step?
Thanks Steve! I have not done the Rubik. I was in high school when it first came out in Hungary (in the early 80’s) and like all the smart indoor games (chess for instance) I didn’t find it that interesting. Things started to change however lately. I might consider it, though right now I am booked for the next month. Cheers, George
Brilliant post. Glad the spreadsheet is unlocked so that I can explore its construction.
Very impressive.
Alan, I will eventually make a tutorial on that one plus I will create a 2007/2010 version too. Just try to use Excel 2003 or older for this one. Come back from time to time. I will post as often as I can. Cheers, George
Sorry, I’m getting about 1-2 messages from real people for every 100 bot-generated spam comments. Now I use a filter. Cheers George
Thats amazing! Can you do a super mario one pweeze:D
Hello George,
I am impressed with your work on both the Tetris and Roller Coaster spreadsheets. The VBA usage is minimal but I learned new API’s (GetAsyncKeyState wich can easily replace my “onkey” method and SLEEP which can replace the OnTime method) thanks to you.
I have a question or two about the Tetris spreadsheet:
could you tell me how you are able to change the background of your chart based on the value of cell “A12”. after I looked at your VBA code, it is not done with VBA. It seems that the background is not a usual chart background but is registered as a Series. but, I could not see anything special in the series’s format.
Also, How did you assigned the drawings (a square made of 4 triangles) for series “Separator”. I guess this would be done the same way, but how ?
thanks
Salut Marie,
1. >>>I am impressed with your work on both the Tetris and Roller Coaster spreadsheets. The VBA usage is minimal but I learned new API’s (GetAsyncKeyState wich can easily replace my “onkey” method and SLEEP which can replace the OnTime method) thanks to you.<<< I tried all these methods GetAsync..., Onkey etc and they are all slow and unreliable (sometimes you need to hit it 2-3 times sometimes to get a jump, sometimes it jumps more than one step etc. I know it is possible since I have a model from the internet of tetris that has crisp and correct key controls. If you find out I would be happy if you can explain it to me. I will figure it out eventually. I am preparing an flight simulator in Excel and I will need good key controls. >>>could you tell me how you are able to change the background of your chart based on the value of cell “A12″. after I looked at your VBA code, it is not done with VBA. It seems that the background is not a usual chart background but is registered as a Series. but, I could not see anything special in the series’s format.<<< See the last part of answer#3 for this. >>>Also, How did you assigned the drawings (a square made of 4 triangles) for series “Separator”. I guess this would be done the same way, but how ?<<< 3. Go to a shape Shift-Edit-CopyPicture. Then go to a chart, click on a series, then paste and replace all the data points with a shape. If you click once then wait and click twice you replace only that single point with a picture. Again I discovered this by trial and error. I only use what works without hitches (problems, stutters etc). As a paranthesis, to change 7 backgrounds for example you need to have a 7 point graph, attach 7 DIFFERENT pictures on each point, then always keep 6 of them in far (say -99,0) and one in the visible (say 0,0). Also make sure the "series order" is right with the background in the back. This method is fast and good but the model becomes slow the more graphics you manipulate. I have better optioons and stay tuned since I will expose ALL of them in tutorials. I am trying to post often, please visit, download more and I would greatly appreciate if you can send your friends over. I need visitors who ask technical questions. Cheers, George
thanks for the shape on a chart stuff.
it works marvelously…
The Shift-Edit is surprizing…I did not know about it. So much stuff hidden in Excel (Like the very useful “camera” tool). Thanks again for all the tricks.
You are welcome. Of course it doesn’t need to be “Paste-Picture” it can be just “Paste” but the quality I believe it’s better.
Hi George – you certainly produce some amazing spreadsheets here, though I’m not sure they are that good for my productivity.
Have you ever done anything with Conway’s Game of Life?. I did one in Lotus 123 about 15 years ago, but it should be much better with modern hardware and graphics.
A future project maybe.
Hi Doug,
Actually my excel is designed to be bad for productivity but good for learning (in general) and I hope, fun.