Druware Software Designs
Druware Software DesignsNative software & developer tools · Est. 1995
Druware Music Bingo

Druware Music Bingo

Game for a little Music Bingo? Ready to host your own game? leverage you Apple Music Playlists for a fun and easy way to host a Music Bingo Night.

Updated

Music Bingo Host App for Apple Music

Run a full music bingo night from your Mac, iPad, or iPhone — your playlist, your prizes, printable cards, and winner verification in seconds.

Download on the App Store · $14.99 once — no subscription

Music Bingo hosting a live game: the song list with called tracks marked, and a panel showing which cards can call bingo

Turn any Apple Music playlist into a bingo night

Music bingo is simple to play and miserable to run by hand. Somebody has to make cards that are all different, remember which songs have played, and then check a winning card in front of a room of people who want their prize now.

Music Bingo does all of that. Point it at an Apple Music playlist — or paste a list of songs from anywhere — and it generates a deck of unique cards, exports them as a print-ready PDF, plays the music, tracks every song called, and tells you which cards are one song from winning before anyone shouts. Each session lives in its own document, so tonight's game, next Thursday's game, and the company party are three separate files you can prepare weeks ahead and reopen when you're ready.

How it works

1. Build your playlist (paste a song list, or use an existing Apple Music playlist)

Connect Apple Music and import any playlist from your library in a couple of taps. No playlist yet? Paste a plain list — one song per line, Title – Artist — and Music Bingo will build the session from it. There's a 60-song demo playlist built in if you just want to see how a game feels before committing.

If you started from a pasted list, one button looks every song up in the Apple Music catalog and saves a real playlist to your library, so the same session can then be played and tracked automatically.

2. Generate cards (PDF, two per page to cut printing cost)

Every card is a unique 5×5 grid — 24 songs and a free center square, with no two layouts alike. Print one card per page, or two per landscape sheet with a cut line down the middle to halve your paper.

Printed output uses clear cells and solid black borders instead of grey fills, which keeps toner use low on the office laser printer you're inevitably going to use. Your session's accent color and logo appear in the card header, and every card carries a unique ID and QR code.

3. Host the game (auto-advance timing, track called songs)

Hit Shuffle & Play and Music Bingo plays through your playlist, marking each song as called the moment it starts. Set auto-advance — 30 seconds, 45, a minute, 90 seconds, up to five minutes — so each clip plays just long enough for the room to recognize it, then moves on by itself. You keep your hands free for the microphone.

Not using Apple Music playback? Run in manual mode: play the music however you like and tap each song as you call it. Either way, the live match panel updates after every track with the cards that can call bingo, the cards one song away, and a blackout progress meter.

4. Verify winners

Someone yells BINGO. Type their card ID into the Verify screen, or scan the QR code on the card with your iPhone or iPad. You get an unambiguous green VALID BINGO or a "not a winner yet" with exactly how many songs they still need, plus the card's grid rendered on screen with its marked squares.

Card IDs combine a serial number with a fingerprint of that card's exact song layout, so a card from a different night — or a doctored one — won't validate. Award the win, and the Payouts screen tracks who won what across every round.

Features

  • Unique cards, every time — 5×5 grids with a free center, guaranteed distinct layouts
  • Print-ready PDF export — one or two cards per page, ink-efficient by design
  • Apple Music playback and auto-marking — songs mark themselves as they play
  • Manual mode — works with any audio source, no subscription required
  • Auto-advance timing — Off through five minutes, adjustable mid-game
  • Live winner watch — who can call bingo, who's one away, closest to blackout
  • QR and ID verification — fingerprinted cards that can't be faked or reused
  • Flexible payout rounds — name, prize, and win pattern per round: single line, two lines, four corners, the X, or blackout
  • Session theming — your event name, tagline, host name, accent color, and logo on every card
  • Reset and replay — clear the game state but keep your printed deck for the next round
  • Document-based — one file per event, prepared in advance, reopened anytime
  • Crash-safe — game progress is checkpointed as you play

Who it's for

Bars, restaurants and pubs

Music bingo fills tables on slow weeknights. Set up a recurring session file with your bar-tab prize structure, print a stack of cards on Monday, and run the same night every week with a fresh playlist and zero prep.

DJs and event hosts

You already have the playlists and the sound system. Music Bingo handles the part that doesn't scale — card generation, tracking, and verification — while you keep the room's attention. Prep multiple client events as separate documents and switch between them.

Parties and family gatherings

Birthdays, holidays, reunions, wedding receptions. Build a playlist of songs the room actually knows, print a dozen cards, and you have an hour of entertainment that works for guests aged nine to ninety.

Why Apple Music instead of Spotify

Music Bingo is built on MusicKit, Apple's own framework for music apps. That's what makes automatic hosting possible: the app can read your library playlists, create new playlists from a pasted list, control playback in-app, and — critically — know which track is playing right now, so it can mark songs as they're called without you touching anything.

That deep integration is only available on Apple's platform. Building the same experience on other streaming services would mean giving up automatic song tracking, which is the single feature that turns hosting from a chore into pressing play.

If you don't use Apple Music, you're not locked out. Manual mode supports any source at all — a different streaming service, a DJ rig, vinyl, a live band. You tap each song as you call it and every other feature works exactly the same.

Requirements

  • macOS 14 or later
  • iOS 17 or later
  • iPadOS 17 or later
  • visionOS 1 or later
  • An Apple Music subscription for in-app playback and automatic song tracking (optional — manual mode works without one)
  • A printer, for paper cards

Pricing

Free to try. Download Music Bingo and run a real game — build a playlist, generate cards, print them, host, and verify winners — at no cost.

$14.99 one-time unlock. A single purchase removes the free-tier limits and unlocks full-size card decks and unlimited playlists. No subscription, no per-event fee, no ads. Buy it once and use it for every game night you ever run. Already purchased on another device? Restore Purchases brings it across.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an Apple Music subscription? No. A subscription unlocks in-app playback and automatic song marking, which makes hosting nearly hands-free. Without one, use manual mode — play music from any source and tap songs as you call them. Every other feature is identical.

Is this a subscription? No. Music Bingo is free to try, with a single $14.99 unlock. There are no recurring charges and no per-event fees.

How many cards can I print? Enough for a full house. Generate a deck sized to your room, then export it as a PDF — one card per page, or two per sheet to halve your printing costs.

What happens if two people call bingo at once? Verify each card in turn. Scan the QR code or type the card ID, and Music Bingo confirms or rejects each one against the songs actually played, then records the winners on the Payouts screen.

Can someone bring a card from a different night and win with it? No. Every card ID contains a cryptographic fingerprint of that specific card's song layout, so cards from another session — or altered cards — fail verification automatically.

Can I reuse my printed cards for another game? Yes. Reset Game clears the played songs and winners while keeping your deck and playlist, so the same printed cards work for round after round.

What win patterns are supported? Single line, two lines, four corners, the X, and blackout. Build any sequence of rounds you like, each with its own name and prize — the default is four single-line rounds followed by a blackout grand prize.

Does it work without an internet connection? Card generation, printing, verification, and manual-mode hosting all work offline. Streaming music from Apple Music requires a connection.

News

Music Bingo v1.1.1 - A Lot of Little Things

... Add up to make a big thing, and this last weekend has been a very long list of little things, along with a couple of big things. Let us start with the little things.

  • Card Logo now defaults the Game Color to match
  • The Playing bar in the Play screen now adopts a more elegant set of play controls
  • Manual Mode play is now a lot cleaner in the UI.
  • Played / Marked songs get moved to the top of the list
  • Played songs get a played order on the list.
  • Song list in Play is not alphabetical to improve manual marking ease of use
  • Card Generation logic cleaned up to be far less convoluted
  • Added a Publish session to the Close Session library
  • Enabled the Shared Library view where a user can build a session using a pre-existing shared session
  • Added an entirely new simpler 'new session wizard' to make adding new sessions faster and easier

A Big Thing:

  • A new Shared Library section exists where pro users can publish and share sessions that worked well for them
  • Everyone can download shared Sessions.

That is a pretty long list of 'little things', and it applies to the Music Bingo for Apple platforms code. It has been no secret that we always intended to deliver a Windows version as well, and possibly an Android version. Both of these presented some pretty significant challenges. While Apple Music and Shazam both have applications for both platforms, the programming interfaces to integrate them into a tool like Music Bingo more than a little tricky.

Shazam - The Magic of identifying a song by listening

Shazam is awesome, and reimplementing that is far beyond the scope of our skillsets, so that was never an option. Apple does offer a ShazamKit for Android that works a lot like the Apple kit, but nothing for Windows, and looking around, there really were not any solid prebuilt options. That really put a spike in the wheel of the Windows host application, and early research raised some concerns about it working on Android. Many of the attempts to use it by others did not go well based upon the noise in the various developer discussion boards.

This REALLY put a damper on the prospects of being able to do anything but a fully manual game. Still easier than full paper, but not our goal.

Apple Music - The soul of the 'automatic' game play

As good as Apple Music is, the integration tool there is called MusicKit, and while it was once published ( and is still available ) by Apple for Android too. It was never published for Windows though. That meant that even with ShazamKit, both platforms would be limited to purely manual mode work.

Other platforms

We did spend time evaluating a bunch of other options, and nothing really jumped out as a 'good option'. Spotify specifically forbids, Amazon, YouTube, Pandora, etc, none really offer a good automation interfaces (yet). For Shazam replacements there are several, and they are arguably better, but at the same time, they carry a cost burden that would have required subscription fees in the applications that we would really prefer to avoid.

All Was Not Lost though

Armed with a little knowledge, a lot of caffeine and a desire to make it work, we set off into the mists of the unknown and hopeful. We started with ShazamKit on Android, using Apple's authentication process. After a couple of hours of work, we had a working Music Bingo Host ( and Player/Companion ) working with full Shazam support. That, in and of itself was a big step forward. For the first time the tools felt worth while on Android. From there a quick implementation of the Apple supplied MusicKit that is now over 6 years old without updates, ended exactly how we expected. Non-functional.

Working in parallel was the Windows team. This was a FAR more ambitious project. The plumbing to do what we wanted simply did not exist.

After a couple of days, working from a partially complete specification we found online, that may or may not have been valid ( it was, just enough that we managed to guess our way to a result ), we managed to get a working Shazam client library, using the same authentication path that Apple provides for the Android library, which should, in theory at least, keep it in compliance with Apple's established usage guidelines. The result, the Windows Host and Player could both support Shazam listening as well. The same situation, finally viable, if not ideal.

And Then there was Music

This one, we had to get creative. At the heart of the issue was the lack of a good integration model. However, Apple does publish and share one additional possible vector of use, MusicKit for the Web. Much like the Shazam work, we already had the authentication model and credential model understood well enough that we could make that work, the question was, could be use that model from Android and Windows? The answer it turns out is, yes. It is not perfect, but it works quite well.

So, screenshots below, and we still have some refinements to clean up and nail down before we can put it in peoples hands, but the nuts and bolts work.

__Android on an Amazon Fire Tablet

Android

macOS on MacBook Neo

Mac OS

Windows on Surface Pro ( ARM )

Windows

Music Bingo Published on the App Store

As of this morning, the initial version release has been approved and made available on the Apple Mac App Store. This is an initial version, and we have already got several updates in progress.

However, before we can get those done, the next project is to get the iOS version through the App Store process and make that available as well. Based upon our initial experience we are expecting that to take another week or so.

Druware Music Bingo Launches

After a hot bit of development, we are launching our little Music Bingo application. Fun for creating and hosting music bingo games.

The bigger story here is how it came to be. A few of us in the office became regulars at a local music bingo night. Always fun, but watching the host work through the challenges that producing it week in and week out led us to the idea that there might be a better way.

This is the result. We are releasing it on the macOS first, and expect to have the iOS ( both iPad and iPhone ) versions ready very soon. This is our first experience working through the Apple App Store process, some are expecting some challenges.

History

v1.0.10 (16)

Mac and iOS versions are both live

After initial release and feedback, we have rearranged and cleaned up the interface.

  • Setup & Options Combined into a single page
  • Cards are now generated and printed from the same location
  • Cards can now be printed two per page
  • Reduced grey in printing to reduce print costs
  • Added the ability to Create an Apple Music Playlist from a Pasted list
  • Added the ability to adjust the auto advance time from the Play page
  • Removed useless Cards view
  • Addressed a couple of edge case crashes
  • Confirmed to work with the public beta releases of iOS and macOS

v1.0.0.7 Published

As of this morning, the initial version release has been approved and made available on the Apple Mac App Store.