I’m a big fan of video games. There are lots of specific of games that I enjoy, from indie titles like Celeste and Outer Wilds to triple-A masterworks like Baldur’s Gate 3. But there’s one genre I keep coming back to, which I like to call “spreadsheet games”. It’s a descriptive name. If you have a game that can be conquered with a gigantic excel spreadsheet (or a python program or a MATLAB application), it’s a spreadsheet game. Generally, they have mechanics that are hard to master and benefit from an analytical perspective.

 

Spreadsheets: essential for winning video games

This isn’t a binary absolute, though. Some games rely on software that could literally run a NASA mission, some could benefit from pulling up the occasional spreadsheet, and some are just fully vibes. Plus, some games have a bigger or smaller spreadsheet factor depending on your play style, or depending on what mods you add.

I really enjoy plenty of non-spreadsheet games too, especially ones with creative stories. But they don’t hold my attention for hours upon hours the same way spreadsheet games do. It’s just how my brain is wired.

I’m going to go through some video games I enjoy and describe why they are more or less spreadsheet games. To be clear, I like all of these games – the rating is just how well they fit the concept.

 

Overcooked: 0/5 spreadsheets

 

An 8-bit style RPG with metafiction, lessons about morality, and a great soundtrack. The main focus is on the story and on the bullet-hell style combat which relies on your reflexes. No spreadsheets in sight.

Celeste: 0/5 spreadsheets

In Celeste, you climb a mountain and learn to reckon with your fears. There’s some advantage to looking at a reference guide for the harder platforming challenges, but you win the game by training your reaction time and your muscle memory. Spreadsheets per se don’t really help at all.

Outer Wilds: 1/5 spreadsheets

Be a space archaeologist! This game is the most well put together game I’ve played, with an incredible number of “aha!” moments and a beautiful non-linear story. I will echo many others in saying that you should should dive into this game blind (that is, with no walkthroughs, guides or even too-detailed descriptions). This suggests it to be a very anti-spreadsheet game. But it does involve a ship’s computer to store information, and flying around a solar system with realistic physics, so it gets 1/5.

Baldur’s Gate 3: 2/5 spreadsheets

Based on Dungeons and Dragons, BG3 immerses you in a rich fantasy world involving everything from cosmic forces to personal journeys. D&D itself is extremely spreadsheet-heavy, but BG3 manages to automate away most of that. You could still use a spreadsheet to decide what feats to take or find the optimal action in the turn-based combat, but that’s not the point for most players.

Bloons TD 6: 2/5 spreadsheets

You place monkey-themed towers around a track to pop balloons – sorry, bloons – to keep them from getting to the exit. There are different types of towers, that give effects ranging from freezing the bloons in their tracks to pushing them back with helicopter blades, to reanimating popped bloons to fight against their former comrades. Like Baldur’s Gate 3, spreadsheets can help you upgrade your towers optimally, but you don’t have to use them to have fun.

Minecraft: 2/5 spreadsheets

Minecraft is super popular. It lets you explore a wilderness made of stacked cubes – fighting monsters or brewing potions or just living off the land. I like building automated farms using the redstone computing mechanics, but I’m nowhere near the level of people who make gigantic redstone computers. Those people, and people who play technology-type mods, can bring Minecraft all the way up to 5/5 spreadsheets. But one of Minecraft’s main appeals is its freedom, and many players make pretty buildings with no spreadsheets to be seen. 2/5 seems like a good compromise score.

Against the Storm: 3/5 spreadsheets

Fantasy city builder where you provide shelter from a never ending rain storm for residents of various species. Two tricks set it apart from a standard city builder: you “win” a settlement by reaching a certain level of reputation (usually in just a couple hours), and you only get some subset of your unlocked buildings for each settlement. Against the Storm scratches my itch for spreadsheet games without requiring their usual time commitment. I don’t usually use a literal spreadsheet for this game (I just look at the wiki), but more advanced players seem to.

Civilization series: 4/5 spreadsheets

The 4X game series par excellence. Choose a world leader from history, start at the invention of agriculture, and build a civilization that will stand the test of time. Picture George Washington, Gandhi, and Ramesses II building monuments and fighting wars as technology slowly progresses from spears to giant death robots. Spreadsheets are helpful if you want to be really good, but not strictly necessary for a beginner or a casual game.

Dyson Sphere Program: 4/5 spreadsheets

A factory-building game cut from the same cloth as Factorio, but in a 3D star cluster and with prettier graphics. I could reasonably give it a 5/5, but it’s not quite as dense as Factorio, with more of an emphasis on seeing cool landscapes and gathering rare resources rather than pure factory crunch.

Kerbal Space Program: 5/5 spreadsheets

Literal rocket science. You build a rocket out of lego-like pieces and fly it around a solar system with approximately real physics. Your missions succeed when you learn how to do orbital mechanics. Delta-V charts and transfer window calculators are practically mandatory for larger, more complex missions. Bonus points if (like me) you play mods that add to the challenge, like Realism Overhaul.

Europa Universalis IV: 5/5 spreadsheets

For people who played civilization and thought “What if it was MORE historical?”. In this grand strategy game from Paradox, you play as a state starting in the year 1444, guiding your land through history on a detailed map of the world. There is a literal spreadsheet calculating optimal army composition that I reference frequently. As a bonus, the in-game menus are also basically spreadsheets. The fifth entry in the series just came out, but I haven’t had the chance to play it yet.

All Paradox grand strategy games (e.g. Crusader Kings, Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Stellaris) are pretty similar, and all spreadsheet games to some extent. My second favorite is Hearts of Iron IV which I would also give 5/5 spreadsheets.

Factorio: 5/5 spreadsheets

You build a factory to turn raw resources into a rocket to escape the planet you’re stranded on, or the entire solar system in the expansion. Maybe the most spreadsheet game out there.¹ The number of online Factorio ratio calculators is staggering, and the matrix math you need to optimize the size of your factory is nontrivial. The factory must grow.

Coming soon: Europe’s Hidden Buddhist Mongolian Republic