Chapter 5

Spreadsheet Basics

Chapter 4 covers tools commonly used by game developers roles, but there is one tool that is the primary domain of the system/data designer: the spreadsheet. Because the spreadsheet is the primary tool you are likely to use as you design game systems, this chapter and the next are devoted to the use of spreadsheets. The spreadsheet examples in this book show Google Sheets (see Figure 5.1), which is a free and very powerful spreadsheet program. Several other spreadsheet programs are also well made and powerful. Almost everything covered in this chapter is also applicable to most other spreadsheet programs, though the interfaces may look somewhat different.

Figure 5.1 Google Sheets

Screenshot of a Google Sheet ©2021 ...

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