How to Play Dingbats: Rules, Tips, and Classic Puzzle Examples

Dingbats is a word game built on visual rebus puzzles: the arrangement of letters, words, or pictures on a card secretly represents a common phrase or idiom, and players race to decode it. Win by solving the most puzzles — read the visual clues literally, spot hidden prepositions, and think outside the box.

What Are Dingbats?

A dingbat puzzle — also called a rebus puzzle — is a combination of pictures, letters, and words arranged so that their layout, size, style, or position hints at a familiar saying. The name has printing-world roots: on an old letterpress, small spacer blocks called "dingbats" imprinted decorative symbols between blocks of type (howstuffworks.com).

The puzzles are often compared to the British TV show Catchphrase, but with a key difference: Catchphrase leans on pictures, while Dingbats rely mostly on text and simple graphics (quiz-questions.uk). Classic examples make the idea click instantly:

• The words "aid aid aid" with an arrow pointing to the first word means first aid.
• The word "eggs" printed above the word "easy" means eggs over easy.
• The word "camp" shown going up in flames means campfire.

If you can read English and you know a few idioms, you can play. Everything else is technique.

A Short History of the Dingbats Game

Dingbats was created by Paul Sellers, a cartoonist from Kent, England. In 1980, his word-and-picture puzzler Whatzit? began appearing in local newspapers before becoming internationally syndicated — and it then inspired a board game of the same name (howstuffworks.com).

The board game travelled under different names: Whatzit in the United States and Canada, Katch-Its in Australia, and Dingbats everywhere else. Licensed editions followed — Junior Dingbats (1988), Totally Dingbats with solo play (1990), an Electronic Edition (1999), and a Ravensburger edition (2003) — and in 2010 a digital edition launched for iPhone and iPod Touch for the game's 30th anniversary (howstuffworks.com).

All board game versions are now out of print, so unless you find a secondhand copy, you'll be playing digitally (howstuffworks.com; cityparkgames.com).

How to Play the Dingbats Board Game

The board game uses puzzle cards in three categories, each worth different points and progressively harder (howstuffworks.com):

• Thingbats (5 points): a combination of pictures and words or letters — the easiest level.
• Dingbats (10 points): a combination of letters or words only.
• Kingbats (15 points): can be either a Thingbat or a Dingbat, but are the most complex.

Setup: four cards of each type are placed face down on the board in twelve spaces. Players roll a die (or spin the board's revolving arrow, in some editions) to decide who goes first (howstuffworks.com; moviecultists.com).

Then the turn-based solving begins:

1. Flip a card. On your turn as the Solver, flip one card starting at a board corner. An opponent starts a 30-second timer.
2. Call out your answer. Say it aloud, then flip the card over to read the printed solution.
3. Chain your turn. Solve it and keep the card — then flip the next one and solve as many as you can before time runs out; play then passes left.
4. Follow the arrows. Printed arrows guide you from card to card; when several leave a space, choose your route. If an arrow points to an empty space, pick any card at random.
5. Jackpots build. Fail a card and it's replaced with a new card from a different-colored deck on top. Whoever later solves the top card collects the whole stack — each card counts toward the score.
6. Tally the points. Play continues until all twelve spaces are empty; the highest total wins.

Some editions include twelve optional wild cards that grant extra solving time, make a player miss a turn, or double a card's points (howstuffworks.com).

How to Play Digital Dingbats

The modern way to play Dingbats is on your phone or in a browser. Digital versions keep the rebus-solving core but adapt the format to solo play, and details vary by app (cityparkgames.com; howtoplaywordgames.com):

• Puzzle flow: Cards (or levels) flip over one at a time. Study the visual arrangement — letter positions, sizes, styles, symbols — and figure out the hidden phrase.
• Entering answers: Type your guess into the blanks. A correct word typically turns green and you move to the next puzzle (howtoplaywordgames.com).
• No daily limit: Many digital editions offer 200+ puzzles with unlimited tries and no time limit (howtoplaywordgames.com; cityparkgames.com).
• Hints and boosters: Stuck? Most apps reveal letters or answers for in-game coins earned by solving levels or watching ads, with power-ups like the Rocket for bigger hints (howtoplaywordgames.com).

Watch out for lookalike apps — the iPad app "Dingbats" by Blockdots is a Wheel-of-Fortune-style consonant-guessing game, not the Sellers rebus game — so check the app description before downloading (howstuffworks.com).

How to Solve Dingbat Puzzles: Five Proven Strategies

Dingbats look impossible until you learn the visual grammar. These techniques come from seasoned players and puzzle guides (howstuffworks.com):

1. Look for a preposition

The most common trick: a spatial relationship standing in for a word like under, over, around, above, below, or between. Words stacked vertically, one inside another, or circling each other almost always encode a preposition — "eggs" above "easy" is eggs over easy, and "jobINjob" is in between jobs.

2. Think literally

Treat the letters as physical objects and describe what they're doing. A "sun" printed progressively higher on the card is a sunrise — letters leaning, falling, or running name the verb of the phrase.

3. Consider the font

Size and styling carry meaning. The word "brain" in a wavy font is a brainwave; the letters c-h-a-n-c-e in bold is a fat chance. Tiny, huge, upside-down, or backwards text is always deliberate.

4. Pull words apart

If a card shows one odd-looking word, split it up — a word is often hiding inside another. Separating the pieces reveals the answer, as in "jobINjob" → in between jobs.

5. Read the card aloud

When stuck, say what you see. One player struggled with a card showing the King of Hearts followed by "bored" — until reading it aloud cracked it: card… bored… cardboard (howstuffworks.com).

Classic Dingbat Puzzle Examples

Dingbats vs Other Puzzle Games

• Dingbats vs rebus puzzles: They're the same thing. Dingbats are rebus puzzles — the game just wraps them in timers, scoring, and difficulty tiers (howstuffworks.com).
• Dingbats vs Catchphrase: Both decode phrases from visual clues, but Catchphrase leans on pictures and animation while Dingbats rely mainly on text and simple graphics (quiz-questions.uk).
• Dingbats vs Wordle-style games: Games like Parseword test vocabulary against the clock; Dingbats test lateral thinking and idiom knowledge instead. They make a good pair: one trains word recall, the other creativity.
• Dingbats vs solitary puzzles: If you enjoy crossword puzzle books for adults or a good sudoku puzzle book, Dingbats adds a social, party-game layer — the board game shines with two or more players racing the timer.

Tips for Your First Dingbats Session

• Keep an idiom list handy. Most answers are common sayings — if you know the idiom, you're just matching the layout to a phrase you already know.
• Play the digital version first. Unlimited tries and hint systems are gentler than the board game's 30-second timer (howtoplaywordgames.com).
• Turn it into a party game. One solver, one timer-keeper, everyone else watching — dingbats also make excellent quiz-night rounds (quiz-questions.uk publishes themed sets).
• Make your own. Dingbats are just rebus puzzles, so pen-and-paper cards work fine — a personalized set makes a great gift for word-game fans.