All Bingo

This is the rules post for the allbingo community.


How to Play

1) Get a bingo card. You can make your own using the bingo card generator, or borrow one from another bingo fest.

2) Read your card to see which prompts appeal to you. Many folks like to post their cards to their blog so their fans can watch the progress.

3) Make some stuff. You can draw, knit, record, write, or otherwise create whatever you want that relates to the prompts on your card. Keep track of which squares you fill; some folks underline or boldface prompts that have been filled, sponsored, and/or posted. You can post your work in your blog or other venue, but for this community, it's not required because some creators may wish to sell their original work. Do not post whole works directly to this community.

4) Call BINGO! Make a bingo by connecting at least 5 fills in a row, column, or other pattern. cottoncandy_bingo has a post showing bingo and extra patterns. This page has most of the alphabet. You may mix and match fills by source, format, or other parameters; or go for a matched set.

5) Post a bingo. Make a post to the community here.  It should include a summary of your fills with the title of each fill linked to the complete work that you have posted in your own space.  (You don't have to post or repost whole fills to this community.)  If you are using cards from another currently active bingo community rather than a custom card or an old card, please make your summary post to the community that gave you the card and just link to your post here, so they get first viewing of material inspired by their card.  If you are using a card from an allbingo fest (see our calendar), a community not currently open, or a custom card generated outside an event, then post your bingo call here.

6) Reprint your work in the Allbingo collection on AO3.  If you have an account on that fanwork archive, then you can post things to the collection; otherwise you can still browse what other people have shared.  Any item created for a square in creative bingo played on this community, which fits the AO3 posting parameters, is eligible for inclusion in that collection.

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Below are some ways you can make a bingo, extra, or achievement in the allbingo community.


Bingo Patterns

To make a bingo, you fill a group of prompts in a specific pattern. The classic ones are five squares in a row, column, or diagonal. Here is a set of patterns including fun shapes and most letters of the alphabet. Crazy patterns can change orientation. These are designed for the traditional 5x5 bingo card, which customarily has a wild card square in the center. Are you doing a bingo with a specific theme or project? Look for a pattern that matches it, such as an anchor for a pirate series. meridian_rose invented this lovely "winged heart" pattern for the 2015 Valentine's Day/Anti-Valentine Fest.

This set of cards shows patterns for specific themes:

* Autumn
* Baby
* Baseball
* Beach
* Bug Lover's Bingo
* Camping
* Christmas
* Football
* Fraidy Cat
* Girls Night Out
* Golf
* Halloween
* Horse
* Mancave
* Nature
* Park-Time
* Patriotic
* Pool
* Pond
* School
* Spring
* Sports
* St. Patrick's Day & Easter
* Summer
* Thanksgiving
* Travel
* Valentine
* Wedding
* Winter


Blackout entails writing a fill for every square on the card. Some fests count this as a bingo, others as an extra. In allbingo you can work your way to blackout one line or column at a time, and then call blackout when you post the last line.

There are other types of bingo card, such as the 6x6 giant or 4x4 mini cards that are sometimes presented during the off-season of a fest. You're free to use any of those other card formats with a generator, or make your own, or whatever. The Bingo Card Generator currently offers 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, and 7x7 options.

When you have completed a bingo, use the posting template to announce it.

Here are some things you can use to fill your squares: collages, crochet, essays, fiction, icons, jewelry, knitting, meta, paintings, patterns, photography, podcasts, poetry, recipes, recommendations, scripts, sculptures, sketches, songs, travelogues, videos. Use your imagination.

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