An 'XCOM' game in Excel beats playing with spreadsheets

Who said that spreadsheet apps had to be dry and boring? Certainly not Reddit user Crruzi. As a test of Visual Basic skills, the budding programmer wrote and released an XCOM game, EXLCOM, for Microsoft Excel. That's right -- the same software you use to create charts and graphs will also let you fight invading aliens. It's not what you'd call visually rich (just about everything on the map is represented by crude squares), but it's a surprisingly thorough recreation of the game's tactical battles, complete with unique character stats and terrain you can blow up. There's even a basic level editor.

XCOM's underlying strategic game isn't here yet (your team's stats are random), and Crruzi is quick to add that the game is bound to be "horribly unbalanced" and rough around the edges. However, the project isn't stopping here. There are plans to flesh out the game and give it some proper polish, so you might have reasons to keep playing after the novelty wears off.