All Bingo

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.


Extras

Extras are bingo-like patterns that usually combine multiple prompts in a single fill. Sometimes they come in a set, like the parallel line extra where there are five fills, and each fill combines two parallel prompts. In some fests, you can do an extra any time; in others, you can only do one after completing a standard bingo. In allbingo you can do extras whenever you want.

cottoncandy_bingo has seven extras described in text.
hc_bingo has a set of four extras with text and pictures.
kink_bingo offers five extras with text, pictures, and examples.
trope_bingo uses four extras described in text.
longfic_bingo has FOURTEEN extras described in text and pictures, many especially intended for large works.


Achievements

To make an achievement, you create fills with an extra requirement on top of a standard bingo pattern. kink_bingo was among the first fests to use this as a way of encouraging representation of people and topics that are often overlooked or mistreated by mainstream media, some of which inspired similar categories below. Achievements can honor whatever kind of activity people find laudable. Some lists on the bingo card generator, and some fests, are especially favorable for certain achievements.

A bingo fest will often offer prizes or banners to go along with its achievements. We don't have any of those here yet, but if you want some and are willing to help make it happen, that's a possibility for the future. We have a few of these now, so look for the links beside the featured achievements. An archive of all the achievement art is in this folder. If you have completed an achievement, you may copy and use its promotional imagery to celebrate your hard work. vexed_wench also recommends this banner maker for creating large linkable images with text. annariel has made a batch of icons for this community that everyone can use, some generic and others for specific fandoms.


Aged to Perfection
Bingo featuring characters older than middle age (for their time period and species, so it varies). Read about ageism.

Blast from the Past
Bingo in which every fill was created prior to creating the card. This is challenging because it requires finding things to match, rather than making them to suit. Works can be the player's own creations or recommendations of someone else's material.

The Cake Is Not a Lie (achievement icons by chordatesrock )
Bingo featuring asexual, demisexual, and/or gray-sexual characters. (This can include both romantic and aromantic variations. If you separate aromantic, demiromantic, and gray-romantic into their own achievement then that's No Romance, No Problem.) The bingo card generator has a list of prompts for Asexuality and Demisexuality, and for Gentle Fiction (No Sex, Violence, or Foul Language). Read about asexuality and related orientations.

Creative Spirit
Bingo featuring characters of alternative religions. That's everything outside the mainstream "People of the Book" religions: so atheists, Buddhists, humanists, Pagans, etc. qualify. Here's a list of religions.

Gender Blender
Bingo featuring agender, crossdressing, genderqueer, intersex, metasexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirit, or other-identified characters outside the conventional sex/gender expectations. Read about sex/gender identity and gender-neutral pronouns.

Penny Candy
Bingo featuring characters who are working class or poor. In cashless societies, this includes whatever the bottom tier of society is -- there's usually someone who has less than others, even if it's measured in ponies or yams. There are tips on writing about poverty and working-class literature. Some vivid photographs have shown poverty in the past and present.

Pushing the Limits
Bingo featuring characters with a disability. (Physical, mental, spiritual; visible, invisible; magical, science fictional; it all counts.) The bingo card generator has prompts on People with Disabilities. Read about how to write handicapped characters and disability in the arts. Here is a list of disabilities.

Rainbow Tribe
Bingo featuring people of color. This can include racebending from Caucasian characters to any other race; for example, Joan Watson in Elementary. The bingo card generator has a Chromatic Characters list of prompts. Read about writing characters of color. This advice pretty much works whatever your ethnic/cultural background if you want to portray a different one. Browse some ethnic characters on DeviantArt.

Size Acceptance
Bingo featuring characters who are overweight, underweight, giants, little people, or otherwise outside the average size expectations. Read about sizeism.

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All at Once
Every prompt on the card crammed into a single work. Shove 'em in there however you can. Do this for sex/romance and it becomes If It Fits, It Ships!

All Different Sources
Bingo in which each fill features a different fandom or original project. These can be stand-alone or series items.

All the Same Source
Bingo in which every fill belongs to the same fandom or original project. Watch for single-fandom bingo fests that you might like to use for this such as ancientctybingo and ranger_bingo.

All Different Formats
Bingo in which each fill uses a different medium such as art, story, poem, photograph, reclist. Read a list of poetic forms and techniques, fiction forms, or art media.

All the Same Format
Bingo in which every fill uses the same medium. This is especially fun in poetry where you can do all the same form, such as a sonnet cycle. There have been a few single-format fests such as snapshot_bingo and talk_bingo.

Alternate Universe(s)
Bingo in which the fills deal in shifting aspects of reality. You can play this with all the fills in the same AU, or with each fill in a different AU. Read about alternate universe fanfic. Note that some canons deal in a multiverse or alternate dimension context where characters may cross into a different dimension or meet alternate versions of themselves. You can use those for this bingo too. It's all about messing with reality.

At the Crossroads
Bingo in which each fill contains a different pair of fandoms and/or original projects (or more). You may not reuse any source material, so for an average bingo you'll need at least 10 fandoms and/or original projects. Here are some possible fandoms.

Classic Action
Bingo in which every fill comes from old source material. "Old" is variable. For modern media like movies or video games, figure 25 years or more. For things that have been around for ages, like books or artwork, figure 100 years or more. Crossing any major division of the media, such as black-and-white to color television, also counts. Define your benchmark for "old" when you claim this achievement.

Month at a Glance
Bingo in which every fill comes from source material (a book, movie, television episode, new original project, etc.) released within the last 31 days. The whole fandom doesn't have to be new, just the thing that inspired this particular piece; but what you create does have to refer specifically to something in the new material, not generic characters or settings. Enthuse about that cool new thing you just saw/read/heard.

Rare Delights
Bingo in which every fill features the same small fandom, rare pairing, bit character, or other obscurity. Explain the nature of the rarity when you make the summary post for your bingo to claim this achievement.

Same Damn Spot
Bingo of five different fills created for the same prompt. This can also be played for double-bingo with ten fills or even blackout with twenty-five.

Serial Killer
Bingo in which each fill stands on its own, yet all belong to the same series following a cohesive storyline. Read about how to write serial poetry.

Set of Soloists
Bingo in which each fill is a one-shot, not belonging to any fandom or original project. Ideally they should be diverse in genre, topic, and other aspects but it's not required.

The Ships Sail In
Bingo in which each fill features a different "ship" -- a pair or moresome of characters connected in a sexual and/or romantic way. origfic_bingo offers Romance and Kink cards, or you can mix the two categories together (along with Gen). kink_bingo is an obvious choice. Read about shipping, and by the way, it has bifocal roots in "worship" as well as "relationship."

Straight on 'til Morning
Bingo in which every fill features the same "ship" -- a pair or moresome of characters connected in a sexual and/or romantic way. This is good for you folks who ship One True Pairing (or OTx for numbers > 2). origfic_bingo offers Romance and Kink cards, or you can mix the two categories together (along with Gen). kink_bingo is an obvious choice. There have also been bingo fests devoted to a specific pairing, although this is more typical of exchanges or big bangs.

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Bechdel Bonanza (achievement icons by chordatesrock )
Bingo in which each fill contains two or more female characters who have a meaningful conversation with each other about something other than a male. ladiesbingo aims for fills focused on women's relationships. Read about the Bechdel Test.

Gensplosion
Bingo in which none of the fills rely on sex/romance. That stuff can be in the background (such as a married couple) but the focus needs to be something else. The bingo card generator has a list of prompts for Asexuality and Demisexuality, and for Gentle Fiction (No Sex, Violence, or Foul Language). genprompt_bingo specializes in this stuff, you can get a Gen card from origfic_bingo, and the old cottoncandy_bingo was ideal for it too. Read about the gen category.

Hearts and Parts
Bingo in which all of the fills deal with romantic and/or sexual relationships. You can make romance, erotica, kinkiness, whatever you like. Use the same pairings or different ones, all one fandom/project or a variety. Particularly fun is a progression of fills following the characters from first meeting through increasing intimacy to consummation or even marriage. origfic_bingo offers Romance and Kink cards, or you can mix the two categories together (along with Gen). kink_bingo is an obvious choice. Read about the genres of romance and erotica.

Order of Fries
Bingo in which every fill passes the Fries test for disabled characters in fiction:
"Does a work have more than one disabled character? Do the disabled characters have their own narrative purpose other than the education and profit of a nondisabled character? Is the character’s disability not eradicated either by curing or killing?"
Enhanced version:
"Novels in which crips talk to each other? Novels in which we talk to each other about something other than wanting to be cured, or how to get cured, or why we want to die because we can’t be cured? Novels in which we don’t die?"

Xenolinguistics (achievement icon by chordatesrock )
Bingo in which each fill features a different language. You can go for broke and do the whole fill in a foreign language. You can use several phrases as part of the fill. A single word is eligible if it's the main focus: the keyword of an acrostic poem, the topic of a dictionary entry, a definition integral to the plot of a story, etc. Written, spoken, sung, etc. material all qualifies; so does visual linguistic art such as calligraphy. You can invent your own language for this, in which case a fill may be a dictionary entry, a list of related vocabulary words, a grammar how-to essay, etc. Natural and constructed languages are all welcome. Ideally, include a reference link for each language so folks can learn more about it if your fills pique their interest. Read about constructed languages and xenolinguistics. Here's an essay on alien art.

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Diamonds and Dynamite
Bingo in which each fill is small -- the smaller the better! Think short-form poetry, drabbles, ACEOs, earrings, finger puppets, icons, skits, etc. The challenge here is to hit a tiny target precisely, and make the material meaningful. This is harder than it looks.

Art: 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" or smaller
Fiction, nonfiction, or other prose: under 500 words
Poetry: no more than 10 lines or 50 words
Recs, mixes, and other sets: 1-5 items per fill
Vids, songs, and other performances: under one minute
Creation Time: less than one hour (use this for stuff that's otherwise hard to measure)

Goldilocks Zone
Bingo in which each fill is average size for bingo fest content. Most poetic forms, short stories, single-page artwork, etc. should fit this. It's an achievement mainly intended for folks who feel like "no size requirements in this fest" is playing tennis with the net down. It's also good practice for targeting size, if you often write to guidelines.

Art, photography, or other visual images: 5x7" to 8 1/2" x 11"
Fiction, nonfiction, other prose: 1,001 to 7,500 words
Poetry: 20-50 lines or 75-250 words
Recs, mixes, and other sets: 10-15 items per fill
Vids, songs, and other performances: 2-4 minutes
Creation Time: between one hour and one full day

Party Size
Bingo in which each fill is big -- the bigger the better! Think Dr. Who scarves, epic poems, life-size portraits, murals, music albums, novelettes, novellas, novels, stone circles, yard sculptures, whatever jumbo awesomeness you can create. But it doesn't have to be quite that huge, just larger than average. This is ideal if you want to whack out mass quantities of practice; no matter how bad or good you are to start, you will be better after you finish.

Art: 14x11" and up
Fiction, nonfiction, other prose: 7,501 words and up
Poetry: 61 lines or 500 words, and up
Recs, mixes, and other sets: 25+ items per fill
Vids, songs, and other performances: 5+ minutes
Creation Time: more than one full day


Competition

Some people like to compete against themselves or each other. You can if you want to, but you don't have to.

There are ways to tally points based on different kinds of fills. trope_bingo has a simple scoring page. ladiesbingo has a more elaborate scoring page.

You can race against yourself to see how fast you bingo on a fresh card. You can race against someone else to see who reaches bingo first, or race against your old time.

You can compete to see how much stuff you can make from one card (going by word count, square inches, or whatever). Work against someone else or try to beat your previous mass of stuff.


Do you know of other bingo, extra, or achievement examples? If so, feel free to share descriptions or links.