How to Play Valentine Word Bingo

Valentines bingo is a fun valentines day party game, or private romantic game for sweeties. Play is just like regular bingo, but with valentines day themed cards, pieces (markers), and prizes. You can download romantic game supplies, make your own, or buy them at a novelties store such as UrbanOutfitters.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sense of humor
• Game cards and pieces
• Place for each player to put their card
• Prizes, if you want
• If you make the boards yourself, you'll need a way to print the boards, and also for "randomly" selecting the name of the cell to call out.

1. VALENTINES THEME. For valentines day, it's fun to use themed cards with a romantic word such as "LOVER" across the top instead of the usual "BINGO". The cells also have romantic or sexy words instead of numbers. So, instead of "B42" you're going to hear something like "Lover-Kiss". With the traditional minimum of 20 images in the grid everyone will find something funny, particularly in combination with the top word. Sort of like adding the phrase "in bed" to the end of the fortune in a fortune cookie. To add more opportunity for joking, use those pastel colored heart candies stamped with romantic and suggestive messages for the game pieces. People love to laugh at them and also pass them to others!

2. GETTING MATERIALS. You can buy bingo games at the store or download and print the materials. Mixed in with the ton of sites for online and casino bingo are several sites with paper bingo. For the valentine theme look at more adult themed website. It's also very fun to make your own board with your sweetie. If you do, you'll need a method for selecting the square to call out. For this, you can relabel some dice with the column letters and words, or you can use paper. The drug store or grocery has the heart shaped candies.

3. LOGISTICS. Gather people around, pass out the cards, and make sure everyone has something to put under the card such as a little room on a table or a large book. Have lots of bowls of the candy game pieces all around. Put in enough for people to snack while playing! There's going to be a bunch of loud laughing and back and forth, so you might play on the other side of the room from the music.

4. USE SIMPLE RULES. Because you're likely to be playing with a group that's also busy socializing and possibly drinking, use simple rules. The "caller" calls a series of cells identified by column letter and word. When a player has that word in that column they place a game piece on it. When a player gets a full row, column, or diagonal completely filled, they yell "LOVER!" and the crowd has fun checking their board. Have fun by letter a different person be the caller on each game. In later rounds the caller can act out the word, as in charades! Whatever people want to do.

5. PRIZES! When someone wins a game let them blindly out of a hat or box a small fun romantic or sexy prize such as a jar of body paint, a sampler of chocolates, etc. Or, you can consider winning sort of a mixed blessing and make the winner do something silly like sing a love song, tell about their first kiss, or make up a valentines poem.

6. PRIVATE PARTY. If you play valentines bingo alone with your sweetie, congratulations, and remember to keep it light. Again, it's probably not exactly about the bingo game, right? The most fun part might be acting out the words, or perhaps drawing a simplified grid right on your sweetie and removing them when the word comes up.

Tips & Warnings

• You can play this alone with your sweetie (see "private party" in the last step). If you play in a group, it works best at a party with an interesting mix of people and a light jokey tone.
• When selecting game cards and pieces, keep your audience in mind. Some groups like pretty bawdy humor, others don't. Sometimes people in a group are more easily offended by bawdy humor, that is until they've had a bit to drink.
• Have fun! As with most party games, the purpose is to do something fun during the primary activity of socializing. For most people this means not taking the game too seriously, and when people break the rules just laughing at them.