Cries of “ZINGO!” echoed throughout the halls. Zingo? What’s Zingo? It’s bingo with a zing! Zingo is published by ThinkFun as an educational board game. The goal of Zingo is to fill your board, a three by three set of icons, with tiles matching the icons on the board, at which point, you shout zingo to signify your victory over your opponents. The tiles come from the zinger, a red box, which distributes two tiles after being pulled by the dealer. The zinger contains two stacks of Zingo tiles which must be refilled when the zinger is empty. Players can either call out the tiles that match their boards to claim them or, in some versions, the person who first grabs the tile claims it. 

Senior Lauren Linney described Zingo as a “simple game that’s good for kids to play.” Zingo’s simplicity makes it a great game for babysitting! It’s easy to learn and master, a trait that not all games share, especially for the non-reader demographic. Although Zingo is geared towards kids, everyone can enjoy the game. Sophomore Maddy Brooks said that she last played Zingo two weeks ago because she “was at [her] friends house and [they] were bored and so [they] were playing board games.” The game was also recommended by freshman Anthony Chong who said that “everyone [should play Zingo] because it’s super fun.”

Zingo’s fun stems, in part, from the many illustrated tiles that are included in the game, though during gameplay only two are available at any one time. The brightly colored yellow tiles are formed from a hard plastic that is moderately lustrous. The tiles feature various illustrations of simple objects like stars and cats to allow non-readers to identify the tiles as well as text for readers. Freshman Alessa Goyzueta said that she preferred the heart tiles, while Linney said “I like the animal ones.” Zingo boards also have two sides, red and green, which offer different challenge levels. Chong said that he preferred the red side because “[he] like[s] the color red.”

When polled on whether they preferred to pull the zinger, students answered with a resounding yes, though not everyone agreed.