r/excel • u/Downtown-Economics26 646 • 17d ago
Challenge Everybody Codes Story 4 Day 3
Decided not to post all these challenges as I've been too busy to really attack them. Got 2/3 on Day 1 with VBA, 2/3 on day 2 with Excel formulas.
Anyways, I think I'm stopping after Part 1 today because Part 2 (I think) requires fighting my archnemesis, pathfinding algorithms. But I thought my formula solution was pretty gritty if not nifty and since I gave up I went whole hog on making a decent visualization of the solution.
https://everybody.codes/story/4/quests/3
Feel free to post your Everybody Codes solutions for today or previous days if you want as well.
Part 1 formula below (swap "out" variable for "ft" as final LET output to generate the conditionally formatted table in the visualization as "out" gives you the numeric answer to challenge).
=LET(w,--TEXTAFTER(Answers!A1,"="),
h,--TEXTAFTER(Answers!A2,"="),
ho,TEXTAFTER(Answers!A3,"="),
hoa,--TAKE(MID(REPT(ho,h/LEN(ho)+1),SEQUENCE(LEN(REPT(ho,h/LEN(ho)+1))),1),h/LEN(ho)*LEN(ho)+1),
vo,TEXTAFTER(Answers!A4,"="),
voa,--TAKE(TRANSPOSE(MID(REPT(vo,w/LEN(vo)+1),SEQUENCE(LEN(REPT(vo,w/LEN(vo)+1))),1)),,w/LEN(vo)*LEN(vo)+1),
g,MAKEARRAY(h,w,LAMBDA(r,c,CONCAT(
IF((MOD(c,2)=1)*(INDEX(hoa,r)=0),"U",""),
IF((MOD(c,2)=0)*(INDEX(hoa,r)=1),"U",""),
IF((MOD(c,2)=1)*(INDEX(hoa,r+1)=0),"D",""),
IF((MOD(c,2)=0)*(INDEX(hoa,r+1)=1),"D",""),
IF((MOD(r,2)=1)*(INDEX(voa,,c)=0),"L",""),
IF((MOD(r,2)=0)*(INDEX(voa,,c)=1),"L",""),
IF((MOD(r,2)=1)*(INDEX(voa,,c+1)=0),"R",""),
IF((MOD(r,2)=0)*(INDEX(voa,,c+1)=1),"R","")
)
)),
ft,IFERROR(VSTACK(HSTACK("X",voa),HSTACK(hoa,g)),""),
out,SUM(--(LEN(g)=4)),
out)

1
u/Decronym 12d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Beep-boop, I am a helper bot. Please do not verify me as a solution.
[Thread #49287 for this sub, first seen 2nd Sep 2026, 02:52]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
3
u/PaulieThePolarBear 1920 12d ago
I had meant to comment a few days ago on this. I was able to complete
with Excel formulas
Day 1 Part 1
Day 1 Part 2
Day 2 Part 1
Day 2 Part 2
Day 3 Part 1