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Office Bingo

A free buzzword bingo card generator for meetings. Share one game code and everyone gets a different card built from the same pool, so it is a fair race. Print the cards or mark them on your phone. The game is called Buzzkill Bingo, and the phrases come from the same 601-phrase library the Buzzkill extension uses.

Send the game code to everyone playing. Same code plus a different name equals a different card from the same pool. Your marks are saved on this device only.

Want to score how corporate your own writing is? Try the Buzzword Index →

How to play Buzzkill Bingo

Three or more players. Agree on the arena before it starts: one specific meeting, or all day across meetings, Slack and email. Everyone loads the same game code, so the cards are different but drawn from the same pool.

Marking a square

A square counts when someone who is not playing says the phrase unprompted. Word forms count, so "circling back" marks "circle back", the same matching rule the Buzzkill extension uses. Every mark needs evidence: another player heard it too, or you note down who said it and when. In Slack or email, a quote settles it.

No baiting

You may not steer the conversation toward your squares. You may not ask Kevin what the low-hanging fruit is. If another player catches you fishing, that square is dead for you for the rest of the game.

Winning, which is the whole game

Getting a line is not a win. You cannot announce it. To claim it you have to work your Victory Phrase into the meeting out loud, naturally, without any non-player noticing. So the game about mocking corporate jargon ends with the winner committing the crime in public while everyone else sits there watching it happen.

If you cannot make yourself do it, you sit on the line and wait for the next meeting, and someone else may fill their card and claim first. Chickening out has a real cost. Filling the entire card in a single meeting is a Blackout and an instant promotion.

The House Phrase

Every company has a phrase of the quarter that leadership cannot stop saying. Type yours into the House Phrase box and it goes in the middle of the card. It is not a free square. You still have to hear it. You will.

Playing a season

One meeting is a round. Keep standings on the breakroom door or a pinned Slack canvas and climb the ladder: Intern Associate Vice President Managing Director Executive. The season champion holds Executive until somebody takes it. A Board Meeting win counts double, and a Blackout in one takes the Executive title outright.

Rule Zero

The game hunts phrases, not people. If the same coworker fills half your card, the right move is to invite them to play, not to screenshot them.

Office bingo, answered

How do you play office bingo in a meeting? Everyone loads the same game code and gets a different card built from the same pool of buzzwords. When someone who is not playing says one of the phrases on your card, you mark that square. Getting a line is not a win on its own: to claim it you have to work your Victory Phrase into the meeting out loud without anyone noticing.
How many squares should a meeting bingo card have? Use a 4x4 card for short meetings and standups and a 5x5 card for all-hands and all-day games. The bigger factor is the size of the phrase pool the card is drawn from: a small pool means more squares get hit and the game actually finishes, while a large pool makes a card nearly impossible to fill.
Is buzzword bingo safe to play at work? It is if you play by Rule Zero, which is that the game hunts phrases and not people. You may not steer a conversation to hit your squares, and if one coworker keeps filling your card the right move is to invite them to play rather than screenshot them.

Play it automatically in Gmail

Buzzkill is a free Chrome extension that highlights corporate jargon in Gmail and LinkedIn, scores your messages by Corporate Rank, and runs bingo against your real inbox so the squares mark themselves. Everything stays on your machine. Nothing is uploaded.

Add to Chrome