Formula for a warning, depending on the input to any one of 4 cells

[Cymbaline]

Please can anyone help me. I have made a scoring sheet for a game which requires the user to put an * into one of 4 adjacent cells, say A1:D1. Sometimes they forget and end up with the wrong score. So I would like to have a cell which displays a reminder in red if they haven’t done so, saying for instance “EAST”

I have tried all sorts to no avail. The nearest I’ve come up with is =IF(COUNTA(A1:D1)=4,IF(COUNTIF(A1:D1,"")<>0,"*",“EAST”),"")

but it’s not doing as I hoped.

The icing on the cake would be to have the reminder “EAST” flashing but that maybe not possible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fpy]

@Cymbaline

Please can anyone help me. I have made a scoring sheet for a game which requires the user to put an * into one of 4 adjacent cells, say A1:D1. Sometimes they forget and end up with the wrong score. So I would like to have a cell which displays a reminder in red if they haven’t done so, saying for instance “EAST”

I have tried all sorts to no avail. The nearest I’ve come up with is =IF(COUNTA(A1:D1)=4,IF(COUNTIF(A1:D1,"")<>0,"*",“EAST”),"")

but it’s not doing as I hoped.

The icing on the cake would be to have the reminder “EAST” flashing but that maybe not possible.

AI says:

[Cymbaline]

Ha. I never thought of AI. Yes this is not quite as i originally wanted but is actually better because if accidentally 2 “*” are entered then the warning comes up. GREAT.