Mecca Bingo have given their site a little something extra in the last few days with the introduction of another brand new exclusive game, Blockbuster Bingo. The innovative game was launched on the Mecca site on Wednesday and is based on the popular TV game show which hit the TV screens in the 1980’s.

The Blockbuster Bingo game is somewhat different to the traditional bingo games in that letters are used. Players need to match the letters called out on their bingo cards in vertical or horizontal lines. With only 26 letters the game will be one of the quickest games of bingo around. The game does have a number of bonus rounds, with players having just one to go (1tg) being given a gold run scratch card with the opportunity to win up to £50.

You don’t even have to be a winner on the game to take the cash.

Mecca Bingo are well known for their innovative promotions and the site have added a few bonus to the Blockbuster Bingo game to make it even more attractive to players. If the first five letters drawn of any game spell the word bingo in any order there is a guaranteed £5,000 community jackpot! The jackpot will be shared by all players in the game at the time.

About the Blockbuster TV Game Show

Although originally an American series, it had a more successful run in the UK, where it was shown from 29 August 1983 to 4 June 1993.

The original show, made by Central Independent Television, was played by sixth form students with prizes accrued for the students and their colleges. The rousing theme music for this version was by Ed Welch, and soon became one of the most recognisable television themes of modern times. The team of two players were not related in this version.

A solo player competed against a pair of contestants, thus setting out to prove or disprove the old adage that two heads really were better than one.

The game board consisted of 20 interlocking hexagons, arranged in five columns of four. Each hexagon contained a letter of the alphabet. A contestant would choose one of the letters, and would be asked a general-knowledge trivia question whose correct answer began with the chosen letter. (A typical question was something like, "What 'P' is a musical instrument with 88 keys?" The answer would be a piano.) In the UK, the phrasing that contestants would use to ask for a letter has entered the language, and is frequently heard to this day. It is also the source of a mildly amusing pun - "Can I have a 'P' please, Bob".

The game board is designed in such a way that a tie game was not a possible finishing result, even if all 20 hexagons were filled, there would always be one winner.

The game began with a toss-up question to play for control of the board, starting with a letter that was chosen at random. The teams or players could buzz-in during the middle of reading of a question. If a player or team got the correct answer, they gained control of that hexagon and were given the chance to choose another one. If the contestant answered incorrectly, the opposing team or player was given a chance to answer it after the host re-read the question. If nobody answered it correctly, the host asked another question whose answer began with that same letter.

The solo player attempted to complete a vertical connection of white hexagons from the top of the board to the bottom; that required at least four correct answers. The family pair attempted to connect a path from left to right with blue hexagons, requiring at least five spaces. The first side to connect their path won the game. The first player or team to win two games won the match. In the UK version, when either party was one correct answer away from completing their path, the hexagons forming their path would flash to indicate this. If both were one correct answer away, all lit hexagons on the board would flash, indicating that the situation was effectively "Blockbusters either way", and the next player to give a correct answer would win the game.