Themed bingo from one link: each person gets their own shuffled card and taps squares as they go.
Printed bingo sheets work until two people in the same car hold the same one. A link gets around that: each person who opens it is dealt a 5×5 card from a shared list, taps squares as they spot things, and is told when a line is done. The sample is road trip bingo for three cars driving from Denver to Moab on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It can't tell the other cars you've won, so you still have to shout.
Who it's for
The person organizing the trip, the offsite or the three-hour meeting, who wants something in the group chat before it starts. Send it the night before a drive, or at the top of an all-hands.
It works when everyone is looking at the same road, the same call or the same reunion. It's the wrong tool for a hall with a caller and real prizes, because nobody can check another player's card. Winners here are on their honor.
What a good one contains
- A list longer than the card. The example has 32 things and deals 24. With exactly 24, every card holds the same squares in a different order.
- Two or three words a square. "Hawk on a post" fits on a phone. A full sentence gets cut off.
- A spread from certain to unlikely. "Cow" is a mark within minutes for whoever holds it. "Wrong turn" may never come, which is what makes the last square tense.
- Things that happen inside the car. "Someone asleep" and "Are we there yet?" give the back seat something to watch besides the window.
- A free center. Every card starts one square up, and four of the twelve lines run through it.
- A line check that does the looking. Rows, columns and both diagonals are watched. The squares change color and the page names the line you finished.
- A prize, named up front. Here the first finished line picks the playlist for the last hour. Without one, nobody bothers to call it.
Deal a few cards first
Press New card five or six times. If a phrase wraps badly or two squares mean the same thing, fix the list. The edit box changes the list on your own screen only. To change it for the group, edit the page in your Claude conversation and publish it again to the same link.
Put two rules in the message that carries the link. A card lasts as long as its tab stays open: reload and you're dealt a fresh one with nothing marked. And a line counts once it's called in the chat, with the last square named.
How to send it
As an open link. Everyone on the trip opens the same link from the group chat and is dealt a different card. There's nothing on it to protect.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
