My twins (Nishanth & Nakshtra) are now almost 7. They are super keen to learn how computers work. So the other day, I showed them Code.org where there are several coding exercises disguised as games. They loved those games … err coding exercises. So that got me thinking… why not make a game in Excel that teaches kids simple programming concepts.
Here is the version 1.0 of Snowman & Hot Chocolate Maze game:
In this post, let’s understand how to build such a game using Excel VBA.
The idea
This maze game is inspired from the Angry Birds coding game at Code.org
The idea is simple. We create a 16×16 grid in Excel. We position a snowman at a certain point in the grid. We place a cup of hot chocolate at another point. The goal is to make snowman reach hot chocolate with a series of commands. Of course there will be obstacles (walls).
Typical Blank Maze with Snowman & Hot Chocolate loaded.
Since kids will be playing this, we need considerable variety of mazes. So let’s assume that,
- There can be any number of mazes, one per spreadsheet.
- Each maze can have a different design, different starting & ending positions.
- Each maze can also have its own images (ie Rabbit & carrot in one maze, Kid and ice cream in another etc.)
- Making new mazes should be easy. You can copy a worksheet, paste it, change the settings and all the code should work just the same.
The implementation
There are two components in this game.
- The front end – ie what players see
- The back end – ie our VBA code
Designing the front end
Here is the basic layout of our maze front end.
We will create sheet specific named ranges for,
- grid for the maze
- settings for the settings
- code.start for the first cell of the code
Displaying the symbols:
We can use the Segoe UI Emoji font. This font is part of all modern versions of Windows. This has a fine collection of various emojis that you see everywhere nowadays. The Emoji hex codes are,
- 26C4 for Snowman
- 2615 for hot chocolate
- 2603 for Snowman with snow flakes
You can find more such emojis. Just go to Insert > Symbol and switch the font to Segoe UI Emoji font.
Note: download Segoe UI Emoji font if you don’t have it.
Adding the obstacles:
You (ie the parent) can write o in any cell inside the maze to build an obstacle there. So once a new maze is cloned (ie a new worksheet is copy pasted), simply create a maze layout by typing o into various cells.
Pro tip: Just select the maze layout you want with CTRL+Select option and the type o in any cell and press CTRL+Enter to get o in all cells.
All these os will be displayed as walls thru conditional formatting.
Designing the VBA back end
There are two parts to our VBA code.
- Setup the maze
- Solve the maze
Setting up the maze
The logic for this is simple.
- Clear the grid contents, except when the cell has “o”
- Set up snowman at starting position
- Set up hot chocolate at ending position
Here is the code for Maze setup.
Private Sub setupGameSheet(name As String)
'set up game sheet given by name
Dim grid As Range, settings As Range, code As Range, cell As Range
With Sheets(name)
Set grid = Range("grid")
Set settings = Range("settings")
Set code = Range("code.start")
For Each cell In grid
If cell.Value2 <> "o" Then cell.ClearContents
Next cell
grid.Cells(settings.Cells(1, 1), settings.Cells(1, 2)) = settings.Cells(1, 3)
grid.Cells(settings.Cells(2, 1), settings.Cells(2, 2)) = settings.Cells(2, 3)
Set grid = Nothing
Set settings = Nothing
Set code = Nothing
End With
End Sub
Solving the maze
This is where things get tricky.
Simplified algorithm for this goes like,
- For each line of the code
- Check the first character of the code.
- If L, go left
- If R, go right
- If U, go up
- If D, go down
- by the number of steps indicated after first letter.
- If the new position falls outside grid
- If so, display an error and end macro
- If the new position leads in to an obstacle
- display an error and end macro
- Else
- Print a snow man along the pathway
- If snow man reaches ending position
- Print snow man with snow flakes. End macro
- Continue to next line of code
- If at end of all code, the snow man still not at ending point
- Display an error message
Here is the code for this:
Private Sub runCode(name As String)
'runs the code in sheet given by name
setup
Dim code As Range, settings As Range, grid As Range, steps As Integer
Dim newx As Integer, newy As Integer, symbol As String, done As Boolean
Dim endx As Integer, endy As Integer, oldx As Integer, oldy As Integer
Set grid = Sheets(name).Range("grid")
Set settings = Sheets(name).Range("settings")
Set code = Sheets(name).Range("code.start")
newx = settings.Cells(1, 2)
newy = settings.Cells(1, 1)
symbol = settings.Cells(1, 3)
done = False
endx = settings.Cells(2, 2)
endy = settings.Cells(2, 1)
While (Len(code) > 0 And Not done)
oldx = newx
oldy = newy
steps = getNumber(code.Value2)
Select Case UCase(Left(code, 1))
Case "L"
newx = newx - steps
Case "R"
newx = newx + steps
Case "U"
newy = newy - steps
Case "D"
newy = newy + steps
Case Else
End Select
'check the boundary
If newx < 0 Or newy < 0 Or newx > 16 Or newy > 16 Then
MsgBox "Don't leave the box!", vbCritical + vbOKonlym, "Hold it there tiger..."
done = True
'check for obstacles
ElseIf hasObstacles(Range(grid.Cells(oldy, oldx), grid.Cells(newy, newx))) Then
MsgBox "Cant move there!", vbCritical + vbOKOnly, "Oo ooh! The snow man hit an obstacle"
done = True
Else
Range(grid.Cells(oldy, oldx), grid.Cells(newy, newx)) = symbol
If newx = endx And newy = endy Then
done = True
grid.Cells(newy, newx) = ChrW(doneSymbol)
End If
End If
killTime
Set code = code.Offset(1)
Wend
If Not done Then
MsgBox "Your snowman is thirsty, fetch him the hot chocolate", vbCritical + vbOKOnly, "Try Again"
End If
Set grid = Nothing
Set settings = Nothing
Set code = Nothing
End Sub
Supporting functions
To keep the code clean, I have created two functions and one sub. They are here.
Const doneSymbol = &H2603
Const speed = 900 'change this to speedup / slowdown the game
Function getNumber(ByVal fromThis As Variant) As Integer
'extract the number after first character
'return 1 incase of error
getNumber = 1
On Error Resume Next
getNumber = CInt(Mid(fromThis, 2))
End Function
Sub killTime()
Dim i As Long
For i = 1 To speed
DoEvents
Next i
End Sub
Function hasObstacles(thisRange As Range) As Boolean
Dim cell As Range
For Each cell In thisRange
hasObstacles = hasObstacles Or cell.Value = "o"
If hasObstacles Then Exit Function
Next cell
End Function
Linking front end & VBA
Now that our UI & Code are ready, let’s link them up.
We set up two buttons on the worksheet (using rounded rectangle shapes), one for setup and other for running.
We write two simple macros and assign them to the buttons.
Sub setup()
setupGameSheet ActiveSheet.name
End Sub
Sub run()
runCode ActiveSheet.name
End Sub
And our game is ready.
Let’s roll, the snowman is thirsty.
Download the Maze Coding Game
Go ahead and download the game workbook here. Examine the code to learn more. Ask your kids to play for some fun. The workbook contains 3 mazes. Feel free to add more.
How to extend this game?
Here are few ways to extend the game.
- Add special point cells to the grid. When snowman passes thru these cells, score goes up.
- Add a special power cell. If snowman reaches this cell, he gains the ability break obstacles.
- Play sounds for jumps, points and breaks.
How do you like this?
My kids loved the idea. At the same time, they don’t want to play more than 2 puzzles at a time. I think they are attracted to Oggy and the cockroaches more than programming for now.
What about you? Do you find such games useful to teach programming and a love of computers to your kids. Let me know your experience once trying this.
Learn how to code yourself
Not just kids, anyone can benefit by learning how to program. So if you are new to coding, check out our five part tutorial on VBA.
15 Responses to “Highlight Employees by Performance Rating – Conditional Formatting Challenge”
While this might solve the question Shelly asked, there is another option that might be more useful - a pivot table could make a list of people who fall into the various categories, so, if you needed to simply see who got in the top bracket to give them a bonus, you would have that list
Simply sorting by the rankings would work too, but you would knock them out of alphabetical order.
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The solution I chose makes use of the percentile formula.
The percentile formula returns the value representing the K-th percentile of a range of values. The range of values is the first criteria, and K is the second criteria in the formula.
I applied Conditional Formatting according to the formulas in the order below:
5% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.95) Dark Blue
15% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.85) Light Blue
65% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.1) Green
10% =$C6>=PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.05) Light Red
5% =$C6<PERCENTILE($C$6:$C$33,0.05) Dark Red
The issue I noted with this approach is that Zambi was not highlighted in my solution as it is in the solution provided. Unless I am mistaken, and I very well may be, the 10th percentile for this data set is at 2.21, so Zambi would fall above the 10th percentile with a PR of 2.3.
The first step to this was figuring out the 'buckets'; what scores should fall into each range. In attempting to match the formatting of the spreadsheet, I determined the buckets below.
5% = 95% to 100%
10% = 90% up to but not including 95%
65% = 10% up to but not including 90%
10% = 5% up to but not including 10%
5% = under 5%
After that, it is a relatively simple matter to plug the necessary values into the conditional formatting formulas as shown above.
One final consideration is that while the buckets above match the color banding on the spreadsheet, I believe that the original request suggests a different color banding with 6 buckets shown below.
Top 5% = 95 to 100% Dark blue
Top 10% = 85 up to but not including 95% Light blue
Top 65% = 35 up to but not including 85% Green
Bottom 10% = 10% down to but not including 5% Light Red
Bottom 5% = 5% or under Dark Red
This leaves one final bucket of 10 to 35% (exclusive of both values) that is not highlighted and so would remain white.
Thank you Chandoo and Shelly for an interesting and useful exercise. This is certainly a valuable technique to have in my reporting bag of tricks.
Use of PERCENTILE is a smarter way of doing it. Below is my solution.
First 5 % = Apply conditional formatting (Dark Blue) as highlight ">=" =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.95)
Next 15% = Apply conditional formatting (Lighter Blue) as highlight between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.95)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.8)
Next 65% = Apply conditional formatting as highlight (Olive Green) between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.8)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.15)
Next 10% = Apply conditional formatting as highlight (Lighter Red) between =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.15)-0.01 and =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.05)
Bottom 5% = Apply conditional formatting (Red) as less than =PERCENTILE(C:C,0.05)
I agree, this is a challenge faced by HR managers every year and use of percentile formulae is the most popular solution which permits further processing like making bell curve, applying increments based on segmentation etc.
Hi Chandoo,
I came at the same solution as yours (not looking at yours first) but I have hard coded the conditions in the conditional formatting. For example:
=AND($C6>=$D$10,$C6<$D$9)
I have done the same thing 5 times for each condition. This makes the formatting independent of the order of specification. I think it will work better across versions of excel.
To copy the same thing in all sheets, Shelly can copy these formatted cells with format painter and apply it to the relevant cells in next sheet and so on! I know 700 sheets will be difficult but I dont know of any other way to apply conditional formating rules to the whole sheet.
First i have used percentile formula in the next column of "percentile Threshold" where E5, E6.. is input to colour code.
The idea behind doing this is to replicate the formula for any range and any threshold
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E5)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E6)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E7)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E8)
=PERCENTILE($C$3:$C$30,1-E9)
Now i have given logic to different employee by applying "if Formula"
=+IF(J3>=$G$5,1,IF(J3>=$G$6,2,IF(J3>=$G$7,3,IF(J3>=$G$8,4,5))))
where 'J" referes to PR and "G" refers to percentile derived from above mentioned formula.
once again it is replicable (just change reference points)
Now comes the major part of Conditional Formatting, i have used "use a formula to determine which cells to be formatted"
Formula =$j=5, format "required colour" Applies to "$I$3:$J$30"
plus put tick on stop if true
This solves the query, important point that this is repeatable and can be done for n number of departments
Thanks !
I had done some reading on it and in Excel 2010 a new function has been introduced, percentile.exc. Attaching a video which also talks why the old percentile function shouldn't be used as it acts erroneous at times. Might be worth a watch Chandoo,
http://www.itechtalk.com/thread10579.html
@Deepa
Quit correct.
Where ever you use statistical spreadsheet functions and are using excel 2010 you should use the new versions of the functions as MS did a lot of work to speed up and fix errors in the old functions.
Warning: If you use the new Excel 2010 statistical functions in Named Formulas most of them will crash excel so do keep that in mind.
Hello Chandoo,
When i first read the challenge file, i thought, the color that need to be applied for a given rule, also need to be picked dynamically as given in rule set. But in the solution file, i found that color is hard Coded. So in case, someone has same data, but wants different colors, he/she needs to goto manage rules and change colors.
Let me know if my understanding is correct, and if yes, can we also make the color to be applied dynamic?
Thanks
Kishore
HI I ALSO USED THE PERCENTILE FUNCTION. HOWEVER, I WENT A STEP FURTHER AND USING THE SMALL() FUNCTION I SORTED THE DATA BY PERCENTILE SO THE COLOSCHEME WOULD BE GROUPED BASED ON THE VALUE. THIS WAY IT IS BETTER AND EASIER TO VIEW.
[...] recently posted a challenge to help a reader with a [...]
Hi, i have got doubt regarding to the percentages that has been put in chandoo's spreadsheet, i cant understadn how he put directly. can some one please explain how chandoo put the percetages straight way that i stated below..
5%
15%
60%
10%
5%
I have stumbled on this post as the solution has been already given so I have taken the liberty to record a video where I show the implementation of it as well as adding a filtering feature which I hope can prove to be useful.
Thank you
http://www.xlninja.com/2012/06/28/how-to-use-excel-to-highlight-employee-performance-rating/
[...] scriu nici macar un cuvant din urmatorul articol. Astazi mi-am citit mailul si hopa challenge de la Chandoo. Cum puteam sa refuz asa ceva si m-am apucat de citit, iar dupa 5 min i-am spus sotului ca pe asta [...]
Question for Chandoo:
I came to your site late but am totally loving these challenges 🙂
I guess it all boils down to how the bins are set up.
I agree with the PERCENTILE.INC function.
pls help me understand where I am wrong.
I have determined following the bins:
bottom 5% <=2.00 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.05))
lower 15% (5+10) <= 2.40 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.15))
lower 80% (5+10+65) <=3.46 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,.80))
lower 95% (5+10+65+15) <=4.00 (F6:F33 =PERCENTILE(range,.95))
top 5% <=4.20 (F6:F33 <=PERCENTILE(range,1.00))
I find that only Tom is highest scorer and unique top 5% achiever.
I notice that Chandoo has included Christy and Daniel in top 5% achievers. How can there be 3 people in top 5% out of a population of 28 (5% of 28 = 1.4, i.e. only one person can achieve that status)?
I tried different ways but cannot get to that distribution.
Rest of the work is simply organizing the conditional formatting rules with Stop If True box checked.
Thanks for your insights