Tic-Tac-Toe game design, and development iteration using Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic Programming

Microsoft Office Suite is undoubtedly among the most significant computer softwares in the business world. Numerous sectors use Excel to address business problems over multiple strata viz data management, financial analysis, programming, and task management. The students in science and business schools are taught to use the Office suite efficiently. The presented article highlights a recent interactive exercise in a course titled "Advanced Computer Business Applications" offered as a first-year Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) elective. The course is taught under the aegis of SKEMA joint institute of the Nanjing Audit University (NAU). The course aims to assist students in acquiring logical skills and knowledge of analytical design aesthetics. 

Excel is a data-crunching program, and too many numbers on one screen can be intimidating for the freshman. The challenge is to capture students' attention span and keep them interested throughout the course due to its technical nature. The research group designing the course operates under the core philosophy of making the learning process exciting and bite-sized. The team's previous teaching experience highlights that 'gamifying' the in-class exercises lightens the classroom atmosphere and helps keep the learning objectives intact. The gamification process is introduced with a simplified version of the classic Tic-Tac-Toe game to aid in learning visual basic coding syntax and its integration with Microsoft Excel. 

Figure 1: The course details and the affiliations of the teaching team. 

The Office Suite: 

Office suites are a general family of office productivity tools that usually contain a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tools. A wide range of popular software stacks is available, including Microsoft Office 356, Google Workspace, LibreOffice (open source), and Apache OpenOffice. Microsoft Office is a family of business tools that profoundly impacted global business operations and quickly became the ideal tools of choice. The office suite helps increase productivity and accurately performs several business operations and functions; these tools also find applications in academics and day-to-day activities. 

Microsoft Excel Versus Microsoft Word: 

Microsoft Word is confined to input, formatting, and output (I-F-O); in contrast, Microsoft Excel adds data processing and visualization to the flow, improving the functionality with input, process, and output (I-P-O). The additional functionality of the processes can be implemented in two ways: utilizing the built-in functions or using VBA programming. This functionality easily helps in easily manipulating the numbers for easier understanding and visualizing of the data. The simple and complex repetitive tasks can be automated using macros that can be programmed to achieve desired results using single button click. 

Course Structure: 

Understanding today's most popular word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, and email software is a prerequisite for a business applicant. The course covers the design principles such as the Input-Process-Output (I-P-O) cycle, block diagrams, flowcharts, and pseudocode. In addition, the structure introduces the advanced concepts in MS Excel such as charts, tables, functions, and formulae to assist in working with complex data. The learning outcome adds an ability to automate operations in Excel through macros, along with the fundamentals of Visual Basic programming (VBA) used along with Excel and general programming techniques. Corollary, students learn to address real-world business problems. The demonstration is exemplified through design discussion and building a real-world game application. 

Figure 2: Course structure. 

What is Tic-Tac-Toe?  

Tic-tac-toe is a popular game that has been played for many years. The game primarily consists of two actors: attacker and defender. The character 'X' represents the attacker, and the defender is represented by the character 'O'. The game is played on a 3 × 3 grid, with each player turning over a grid box and marking it with the player's respective sign. The winner must place three markers in a row to win, as depicted in Figure 3. The game is over once all nine spots are filled. The match is considered a tie if no player scores three successive markers. 

Figure 3: Tic-Tac-Toe game grid. 

Tic-Tac-Toe game design: Gamifying the learning experience:

Figure 4 attempts to capture the game's design flowchart. The first step to use the macros and VBA programs in Excel is to save the Excel file provided into ".xlsm" format by utilizing the save as functionality. The newly created file will serve as a workspace for designing and playing the game. Next, the attacker or defender selects a cell in the grid and marks it with an 'X' or a '0' alternatively. The process repeats until either the attacker or the defender proclaims victory. The game also features a built-in ability to track the player's score for the session, and the count resets after the final game. 

Figure 4: Game design flowchart. 

The game has two dedicated buttons for gameplay, the attacker and defender can use the respective buttons for the attack and defense. The three buttons at the bottom, as seen in Figure 5, are for game management. The button on the extreme ends are used to declare the round's outcome, which further updates the scoreboard if a winner is announced, and button in the center is to reset the playing area for the following round. The controls are additionally designed to be compatible with touch devices. 

Figure 5: Design of the user interface. 

VBA code to run the game:

The mapping of buttons and other game elements to the VBA script adds the desired functionality. Figure 6 (a) and Figure 6 (b) contain the snapshots of the simple VBA scripts used in the interactive exercise design. 

Figure 6 (a) The VBA script for gameplay buttons. 

Figure 6 (b) The VBA script for score management.  

Demonstration (or Sneak-peek and gameplay)

In-depth game design (or in-depth elaboration of the game design) or (Detailed elaboration):

Conclusion: 

The team observed during the years that participation in technical courses is often low, primarily when taught to students from non-technical backgrounds. The purpose of the exercise was not to turn work into a game but to act on students' psychology, which resulted in active participation from the students. The activity's success is evident from the gradual increase in the queries received by the Teaching Assistants, promoting continuous student feedback throughout the instructional cycle. Furthermore, the exercise helped the team break up the monotony of the lab environment and encouraged students from different backgrounds to come up with technically innovative ideas meeting the course learning objectives. A YouTube playlist includes short video demonstrations of some of the students showcasing their projects. The students also explored topics such as, "Should you have another child ?" as shown in Figure 7. The game demonstration video is additionally added to the official website of the SKEMA joint institute to appreciate and encourage such initiatives. Our team is also exploring and working on more interactive courses through methodologies such as flipped classrooms and designing educational experiences for early learners.

Figure 7: Student proposed solutions to problems related to family planning. 

Demonstration of the student projects:  

About the authors

Dr. Govindarajan Usharani Hareesh ([email protected]) earned his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management department of the National Tsing Hua University (Hsinchu). Dr. Hareesh currently serves at the Sino US Global Logistics Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, where his research focuses on digital transformation design and emerging technologies management.

Mr. Manish Kumar ([email protected]) earned his Bachelor’s in Science in Electronics and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Science degree from the University of Delhi, India, with a focus in Informatics. Additionally, he is a graduate teaching assistant at the SKEMA Business School. His research interests include the applications of mixed reality technologies in marketing.

Ms. Anshita ([email protected]) earned her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Science from the University of Delhi, India in 2018. She is currently pursuing her post-graduation in Informatics at the Institute of Informatics and Communication, University of Delhi, India. Additionally, Ms. Anshita is serving as a graduate teaching assistant at the Skema Business School. Her research interests include extended reality in healthcare and working on low code data analytics environments.