Need advice on rewriting a VBA Excel game for mobile use

[billrow]

I am looking for some advice on rewriting an Excel VBA game as a mobile app. The game is a strictly text-based adventure game, with a “Wild West” theme. No graphics at all; just uses InputBox to display prompts, and requires only single-character responses. All of the data for the program is in cells of the spreadsheet, hidden by using white text on white background, as well as other methods to try and protect the sheet from access or change by the user. One expert programmer/hacker has shown me that this is not really secure; so would hopefully be able to resolve this in a rewrite. There is an area on the sheet that represents the “map” of the playing area, with numbers for each type of area (buildings in town, mountains, river, desert, etc.) Other cells have mapping between those numbers and things like people and things located there, hints available, as well as health status (hungry, thirsty, injured, tired). I use Collections to map certain areas of the sheet to be accessed as variables. The object of the game is to complete five challenges (arrest bank robber, find gold nugget, find chest stolen from stagecoach, rescue mayor’s daughter from savages, release rancher from witch’s curse) before dying of thirst, starvation, animal attack, etc. The game provides for saving and resuming, simply by auto-saving the sheet with any changes made by the program that reflect the current status. There is a basic game, where all places are in the same map location, which allows the player to continue to learn from failed attempts. And an advanced game, which randomizes location of many buildings and other locations.

My primary coding expertise (other than what I have learned of Excel VBA) is for web-based apps: HTML, CSS, JavaScript. I have read that HTML5 and JavaScript can be used for mobile apps in addition to web-based content, but I have no experience with HTML5. I would be willing to learn a new more native mobile language if needed; but it would be great if I could leverage my (admittedly limited) coding knowledge.

Thanks for any advice on how I might proceed!

[6StringJazzer]

I am not an expert web developer but it's been a couple of days with no responses so I'll toss in my 2 cents. I think you might be able to do this in JavaScript. I am not familiar with HTML5 features but I manage people who are. However, I do not know what the persistence solution would be for JavaScript ("The game provides for saving and resuming, simply by auto-saving the sheet").

By the way

One expert programmer/hacker has shown me that this is not really secure

almost nothing in Excel is secure against a motivated attacker. But it's a game--why are you concerned about hiding data?

Is this something you want to monetize? Just wondering if you would share it to see if someone can prototype a web version.

[billrow]

Thanks for getting back to me, 6StringJazzer. Maybe I didn't find the right place to ask my question, as there have been 300 viewers, but you're the only one to respond! I'll try to attach my game spreadsheet. I am leaving the "so-called security" things in place. I guess the main reason for having it locked up is so that a player couldn't accidentally make a change to the sheet, or even the code, which could break things. I don't really have any goal of making money from this. Just spent a lot of time on it, think it could be fun for people, and would like to get it out there. Or maybe nobody would care about a text-based game, with all the advanced graphics out there now? It seems like the potential exposure would be many times greater for a mobile app than for an Excel game. If nothing else, I would like to see if you of any of your people would like to try it out as is, and give me any feedback on the current Excel version? I intentionally don't want to give much help; but I would advise using graph paper and pencil to map out places as they are discovered. If someone thinks it is worthy spending some of their time, either advising me, or maybe helping with a rewrite, I could provide an "unlocked" version; though as you say, they could probably hack into it anyway. I'll try attaching the file, and if I fail I'll try again. Thanks! Bill R

[billrow]

Oh... forgot to mention: HTML5 has something called "local storage" which might work for saving game status. I haven't dug into it much, but seems like kind of a "super cookie". ?