How is this different from ordinary bingo?

Nothing is called out. In ordinary bingo a caller draws numbers and players mark their cards; here the squares are statements about people and you fill them by finding somebody they are true of. The mechanic is conversation rather than luck, and the card is a checklist rather than a wager.

How many prompts do I need?

At least as many as the grid has squares — nine for a three by three, twenty-five for a five by five. Considerably more than that is better, because it makes the cards in a set differ more from each other.

What makes a good prompt?

One that is true of roughly a quarter of the room. Too common and it gets signed instantly by whoever is nearest; too rare and the square goes unfilled. Avoid anything touching health, money or family unless you know the group very well.

Can one person sign several squares?

That is your rule to make, and the answer usually depends on room size. One signature per person is a stronger icebreaker and needs a big room; allowing two or three makes a large card workable in a smaller group. Announce whichever you choose before you start.

How long should it run?

Ten minutes for a three by three, twenty to thirty for a four by four. Set the limit in advance and announce it — an open-ended round loses momentum well before anybody finishes.

Human Bingo Generator

Human bingo is the icebreaker that works because nobody has to stand up and say something interesting about themselves. Everybody gets a grid of prompts — has lived abroad, can play an instrument, hates coriander — and fills it by finding somebody it is true of. This makes the cards, gives each player a different one, and checks the arithmetic that decides whether the game is playable at all.

Prompts

Has lived in another country
Can play a musical instrument
Has broken a bone
Speaks more than two languages
Has run a race of 10km or more
Cannot whistle
Has been on television or radio
Has a birthday this month
Has never had a cup of coffee
Can drive a manual car
Has met somebody famous
Owns more than three pairs of the same shoe
Has read a book in the last week
Can solve a Rubik's cube
Has been up a mountain
Hates coriander
Has the same first name as a grandparent
Has swum in the sea this year
Can touch their toes without bending their knees
Has never broken a phone screen
Plays a team sport
Has camped in the last two years
Can name every county they have lived in
Has a pet that is not a cat or a dog
Has flown more than once this year
Bakes their own bread
Has kept a plant alive for over five years
Knows all the words to a song in another language
Has written something that was published
Prefers the window seat
Has changed career at least once
Can ride a bike with no hands
Has been to a live sporting event this year
Has never seen a film everybody else has
Gets up before six most days
Has a middle name they never use

One per line. Aim for statements true of roughly a quarter of the room. Your list stays in this browser.

36 prompts · a 4×4 card needs 16

Grid size

Between 3 and 5. Four is the usual compromise.

Number of players

Used to check the card can actually be completed by the room.

Cards to print

One per player. Each is shuffled independently.

Seed (optional)

Makes the set reproducible, for reprinting a lost card.

Free centre square (needs an odd-sized grid)

Your human bingo cards will appear here.

What this generator does

Builds bingo cards whose squares are statements about people rather than numbers or words to be called out. Each card is dealt from your prompt list without replacement, so no card ever asks the same thing twice — which is what a naive one-random-prompt-per-square implementation gets wrong, and which nobody notices until a player is halfway round the room. It also checks the arithmetic that decides whether the game works: a twenty-five-square card in a room of eight people cannot be completed unless somebody signs more than once, and the tool says so before you print thirty copies.

How to use this tool

Write your prompts, one per line, or start from the default set and edit it.
Choose a grid size and say how many people will be playing.
Generate a set of cards — each player gets a different one.
Print them, hand them out, and set a time limit. Everybody mingles and gets signatures.

Understanding the controls

Prompts: One per line. Good prompts are true of some people and not most — 'has been to France' is too common in a British office and 'has climbed Kilimanjaro' is too rare. Aim for roughly a quarter of the room.
Grid size: Three by three is nine squares and takes about ten minutes. Five by five is twenty-five and needs a large room and half an hour. Four by four is the usual compromise.
Number of players: Used to check the card is completable. With n players there are n−1 other people to find, so a card with more squares than that requires somebody to sign twice — which is a fine house rule and a bad surprise.
Free centre square: A free square in the middle, as physical bingo cards have. Only possible on an odd-sized grid, and the tool says so rather than quietly ignoring it on a four by four.
Number of cards: Each is shuffled independently, so players cannot simply copy their neighbour. Generate one per player.

Worked examples

A four by four: Sixteen squares, sixteen different prompts, no repeats. Around twenty minutes for a room of thirty.
A five by five with a free centre: Twenty-four prompts plus the free middle square, which is the traditional layout.
The warning that matters: Twenty-five squares with eight players: only seven other people exist, so the card is uncompletable unless somebody signs several times.
A good prompt: 'Has broken a bone' — true of perhaps a third of any room, which is the level that makes people actually have to ask.

Common use cases

The first fifteen minutes of a training day, conference or away day
A new class or team meeting for the first time
A wedding reception, where half the room has never met the other half
A youth group, club or society welcoming new members
Any gathering where the alternative is everybody talking to the person they came with

How this generator works

Prompts are shuffled and dealt into the grid without replacement, which is what guarantees no repeats within a card. Each card in a set is shuffled independently from the same pool, so two players can hold cards with the same prompts in different places — that is fine and expected, because the game is about finding people rather than about the cards being disjoint. The completability check is simple arithmetic that nobody does in advance: squares to fill against people available, less yourself.

Randomness and fairness

The shuffle uses the browser's cryptographic random number generator, and prompts are dealt without replacement so a card can never repeat one. Cards within a set are shuffled independently, which is why two players can hold the same prompt in different squares. A seed makes a set reproducible — useful for reprinting a lost card — and switches to a deterministic generator that is not cryptographically secure, which is what reproducibility means.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

Players are moving around and able to talk to each other.
One signature per square, with a person allowed to sign multiple different squares unless you rule otherwise.

Limitations and good to know

The default prompts are generic by necessity. A set written for your specific group is far better, and takes about ten minutes.
It cannot tell whether a prompt is appropriate for your group. Anything touching health, money, relationships or family can land badly, and the tool has no way to know your room.
There is no scoring or verification — nothing checks that a signature is honest, and in practice nobody minds.
Cards within a set can share prompts in different positions. Making every card disjoint would need many times more prompts than anybody writes.
It does not print. Use your browser's print function, which the page is laid out for.

Common mistakes

Prompts that are true of almost everybody: 'Likes chocolate' gets signed by the first person asked and teaches nobody anything. Aim for prompts true of roughly a quarter of the room, which is where the conversation actually happens.
A five by five card in a small room: Twenty-five squares needs a lot of people. The tool warns when the arithmetic does not work — take the warning seriously, because the alternative is a room of people who cannot finish.
No time limit: Set one and announce it. Without a deadline the mingling tails off after five minutes and the last few squares never get filled.
Prompts that single people out: Anything only one person in the room could sign turns the game into a hunt for that person. It is also uncomfortable for them. Keep prompts broad enough that several people qualify.

Practical tips

Write half the prompts about the group specifically — the team, the course, the family — and half generic. The specific ones are what people remember.
Have a small prize. It costs nothing and roughly doubles how seriously people take the first ten minutes.
Ask for a name rather than a signature if handwriting will be illegible, which at a wedding it will be.

Troubleshooting

It says I need more prompts: A grid of n by n needs n² prompts, so a five by five needs twenty-five. The message says exactly how many you have and how many are needed. Add more or drop a grid size.
Two people have the same card: With a small prompt pool and a small grid, identical cards become likely — twelve prompts in a three by three has limited arrangements. Add prompts, which fixes it immediately.
The free centre square did not appear: It needs an odd-sized grid. A four by four has no middle square, and the tool says so under the card rather than silently dropping the setting.

Privacy and your data

Your prompts stay in this browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is written into the page address, and the site has no endpoint that could receive them. That matters more than it looks for this tool: a prompt list written for a specific group is often a list of facts about identifiable people. Analytics records only that the tool was used and the grid size — never a prompt.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from ordinary bingo?: Nothing is called out. In ordinary bingo a caller draws numbers and players mark their cards; here the squares are statements about people and you fill them by finding somebody they are true of. The mechanic is conversation rather than luck, and the card is a checklist rather than a wager.
How many prompts do I need?: At least as many as the grid has squares — nine for a three by three, twenty-five for a five by five. Considerably more than that is better, because it makes the cards in a set differ more from each other.
What makes a good prompt?: One that is true of roughly a quarter of the room. Too common and it gets signed instantly by whoever is nearest; too rare and the square goes unfilled. Avoid anything touching health, money or family unless you know the group very well.
Can one person sign several squares?: That is your rule to make, and the answer usually depends on room size. One signature per person is a stronger icebreaker and needs a big room; allowing two or three makes a large card workable in a smaller group. Announce whichever you choose before you start.
How long should it run?: Ten minutes for a three by three, twenty to thirty for a four by four. Set the limit in advance and announce it — an open-ended round loses momentum well before anybody finishes.