Quest for the Rings board game program

[grimlick]

I was thinking it would be fun to make a program that re-creates the board game part of The Quest for the Rings so that the entire game can be played on a computer. However, since I have very limited programming experience, I thought it would be easier to do it in Microsoft Excel. No such luck.  It looks like I might have to get into some macro programming in order to get this to do even part of what I want it to do.  I have no macro experience either, so that doesn't help much.  So far all I've been able to do is set up some randomization tables for the different scenarios that you can input as the "Ringmaster" in the game.  Here's what I've been able to come up with so far:

There needs to be 3 levels of randomization:

Level 1: The castles. According to the manual there are 23 castles consisting of 7 dungeons, 6 crystal caverns, 6 shifting halls and 4 infernos.

Level 2: The rings. There are 10 rings scattered within the 23 castles.

Level 3: Monsters. There are 3 dragons and 3 Nightmares. All 6 out of 23, there can't be both dragons and nightmares.

I was able to set up this simple table:

 

Each time the table is reset the numbers at the top change to make a different scenario

 

This will get you through the game eventually, but there are issues with it. Namely, it doesn't take into account what has been done before so you can encounter dragons more than three times, for instance.

 

I would eventually like to implement the following features:

-Setting up the board game map (with a picture of the actual map as the background) with 23 castles that can be uncovered to reveal the different scenarios.

-Expanding the randomization to the 23 castles. Setting them out as the board game would be, and limiting them to what was able to be done during actual game play.

-Implementing a movement counter to keep track of the player's turns.

-And while this is ridiculously beyond my capabilities, it would be awesome to have a program that not only plays the board game, but also automatically re-directs you to an emulator that plays the game with the current scenario from the board.

 

Any help, tips, ideas, advice, criticism or harsh language would be greatly appreciated.

 

questrand.xlsx

 

P.S.

Another element of the game is the keyboard overlay for the Odyssey2 system itself. And if you don't have an actual Odyssey2 and overlay, this can be kind of a pain getting the keys right.  I've been able to come up with a workable solution by using a keyboard I got from a local thrift store:

 

I'm obviously not an artist either, but you get the idea.  Actually, I think it might be fun to make some 3-D printed keycaps in the shape of the elements, but this isn't the right type of keyboard for that.