Wheel of Fortune Bingo "The Board Game"

I just got both copies in the mail today, having spent $33 (including tax) on them.

I must tell you the way Mattel made everything is simply fantastic. The 28-wedge Wheel and its stand are designed to carry everything you need from the cubes (80 green ones and 20 blue Jackpot ones) to the puzzle cards to even the instruction sheet. The Wheel itself spins like Pressman's Deluxe Wheels only much more beautifully. I could have fun spinning this thing all day. To sweeten the deal even further, the Wheel is a double-sided card for two modes of gameplay! There is a small triangular nook to keep the Wheel card in place.

Each player gets one puzzle card, each worth a specific amount of points. In order to obtain the points, the player has to complete the card by spinning up letters. The more letters there are on the card, the more points the card is worth. Gameplay starts with the youngest player. If the player spins up a wedge with letters, they are to choose any one of those letters that appears on their card. If at least two of the letters on the wedge appear on the player's card, s/he is only allowed to choose one of those letters. Even so, if there are multiple appearances of that chosen letter on the card, the player can still cover up those appearances. Play then passes to the next player regardless of whether or not any of the letters spun appear on the player's card.

If a player completely fills in the card with letters, the points the card is worth becomes part of the players score and the player gets to take another card. Once one player fills in three cards, each of the other players give the Wheel one final spin. After that, the game is over and the players tally their points. Scores are tallied with the points completed puzzles are worth along with the number of blue cubes each player may have (each blue cube is worth one point and is only obtained through landing on the Jackpot space). Incomplete puzzle cards do not count toward your score regardless of how many puzzle cubes are on them.

Each side has one Bankrupt wedge, two Jackpot spaces, and four white spaces. Each of these four white spaces has letters along with a blue cube on it. Whenever those are landed on, a blue cube is added to the Jackpot whether or not any of the letters appear in the player's puzzle. The Jackpot starts off with three blue cubes.

To claim the blue cubes, the player must land on Jackpot. Once that happens, all of the blue cubes in the Jackpot belong to the player. They will not be lost to a Bankrupt. If there are no more blue cubes available, the player has to record how many blue cubes s/he has and return the blue cubes to the cube supply which borders the Wheel, but the number recorded down still represents the blue cubes that s/he had. In other words, nothing is lost for the player. Every time the Jackpot is claimed, it is reset to three cubes.

If Bankrupt is hit, the player loses all the cubes on the line that has the most cubes on it. If I'm right, any cubes on the other two lines are spared. Also if I'm right, if there is a tie for most cubes on a line, the player only has to choose just one line. Cards that have been completed are not affected nor are the points the completed cards were worth.

The side used for the first game mode has four letters on each wedge and three Free Play 1 spaces. If a player lands on a Free Play 1 wedge, s/he is allowed to choose any letter s/he wishes. Multiple occurrences of the letter s/he chooses may be covered up.

The side used for the second game mode is very interesting. It has five letters on each wedge, two Free Play 1 spaces, two Free Play 2 spaces, and a green wedge with a hand on it. Just like in the first game mode, the Free Play 1 wedge allows a player to choose any one letter on the card s/he wishes. Free Play 2 works like Free Play 1 only it allows a player to choose two letters! If the wedge with the hand is spun up, the player gets to choose a letter on an opponent's card and remove cubes from any instances of that letter from the opponent's card. Cubes taken from the opponent's card may not used to be used to fill in any spaces on the player's card nor any spaces on any other opponents' cards. They are to be returned to the cube supply at the Wheel's rim.

In addition to the two game modes, there's also an option for an spiced-up mode of game play. In this mode, every time the Wheel spins up a letter, the player gets to choose one of those letters to be a designated letter. If any or all of the other players have the designated letter on their card, they may add cubes to all instances of that letter. Gameplay is otherwise the same.


All in all, it's a very interesting game to have and play, especially considering the Wheel can be interchangeable and can carry everything you need inside to make portability a breeze. What's also nice is that custom skins can very easily be made to the Wheel and even have it used to play a regular old game of Wheel of Fortune. For those wanting to figure out the dimensions to make custom skins, the card is 6.625 inches in diameter, the hole for the knob is 0.625 inches (5/8 of an inch) in diameter and the small nook is 0.1875 inches (3/16 of an inch) deep and 0.1875 inches across the rim.


If there are any questions you guys may have, any at all, please ask away. Try not to worry if one of your answers has been mentioned in this post and you overlooked it. Even if it's already said here, I'll try to explain it to you in a better way.


By the way, one more thing. One of the puzzle card's answers is...