Blank Off! walkthrough

Part 1Running a show

Nothing about the show itself (prompts, names, team names) can be changed while it's running. To change a show, edit it, save it to the team, and load it again.

1Load tonight's show

At the top of the run page, click Load a show, pick one of the team's shows, then Load and reset. Loading always starts from the top: scores, rounds, the timer and the Final. If a show is already under way, it asks for a second click first.

2Open the audience screen and get ready

Click Open audience screen ↗, drag the window onto the projector, and click its Full screen button. Its buttons and the mouse pointer fade once the mouse is still. Turn sound on in the host's top bar, then click the audience screen once: browsers only play sound after a click there.

Until the show starts, the host page keeps the board out of sight, so it never looks as if a round has begun. The yellow guide box always says what to do next, with the buttons for it: ▶ How it works or Skip to the game.

3Explain the game (optional)

▶ How it works puts five animated slides on the audience screen: the two teams, picking a square, filling in the blanks, points awarded or taken away at the host's call, and the Final. Step through them with Next ▶ and ◀ Back; the guide gives you a line to say for each one. The intro music stops while they're up. ALL PLAYs and picture or video prompts aren't mentioned, so they stay surprises.

4Start the show and play the board

On the last slide, Next ▶ becomes ▶ Start the show (or use Skip to the game from the intro). The audience screen announces the round and shows each category full screen for you to read out (Skip cuts it short). Then a team picks a category and a value, and you click that square.

Each row is for a set number of improvisers: the top row one, the middle row two, the bottom row all three. On the host's board, a pink ★ marks a hidden ALL PLAY and a 🎬 a picture or video prompt. Only the host can see them.

5Play a square: ask, reveal, SCENE!, score

The audience screen shows only the category, the value and the words needed. Ask the audience, type their answer into the box, and click Reveal scene.

Once revealed, the scene timer starts by itself (unless you've turned that off). Press 🔔 SCENE! to end the scene; it pulses in the last 15 seconds. Then click the team under Award, or under Take from if it flopped. Cancel (or Esc) closes without scoring and leaves the square open.

6ALL PLAY squares

An ALL PLAY square skips the prompt. Click Pick a game and the audience screen spins to a short-form game that both teams play, timed with the longer ALL PLAY length. A game won't repeat until the whole list has been used.

7Picture and video prompts

A media square holds a picture or a video instead of a written prompt. When it's picked, it opens like an ALL PLAY, with a fanfare and PICTURE PROMPT! or VIDEO PROMPT!. There's no suggestion to ask for: click Show it and the picture or video fills the audience screen. The team performs a scene inspired by it, scored like any square. ✎ Add text on its tile gives it an optional line of text, shown under the picture or video. The text can have [blanks]: then the audience is asked for them after the fanfare, and their words appear in it. Tick Show the picture while asking (as a clue) to have it on the audience screen while they're asked; otherwise it stays hidden until Show it.

A video starts playing when it's shown; the host has ⏸ Pause video and ⏮ Restart video. When it finishes, the audience screen swaps it for a still card until the scene ends.

8Time's up, and the Final

When the show clock reaches Time's up at, the audience screen rings TIME'S UP! and the show moves to the Final the next time the board is up. TIME'S UP! stays on the audience screen until you click Dismiss TIME'S UP! in the guide; then the Final is announced. ⏰ Time's up now (click twice) does it early. Or finish both boards: the guide offers the next round each time.

The Final walks you through six steps on the host page:

• Category and wagers
• The audience's one suggestion
• The first team's scene
• The second team's scene (each team only sees its scene when it's their turn)
• The winner
• A thank-you with the QR code for sending in prompts

Mark each scene Won or Lost to add or take away the wager. The audience's scoreboard doesn't show the result until the winner is revealed.

Part 2Preparing shows

Everything under Between shows works on its own copy of a show. Editing never touches the show being run. Shows are saved to the team, so everyone signed in sees the same ones.

1Open, name and save a show

In ✎ Edit shows, step 1 has two rows:

• This show: its Show name (say, "October 24"; only for the show lists, the audience never sees it), 💾 Save show (or Ctrl+S) and Save as a new show.
• Other shows: pick one of the team's shows and click Open, start a ＋ New blank show, or Delete show (click twice).

If a teammate saved the same show after you opened it, saving merges your changes and asks about anything you both changed.

Step 2 holds what the audience sees on the intro: the two team names and the intro subtitle.

2Fill the board

Each round always has four categories of three prompts: categories can be renamed and moved, not added or removed. Round settings holds the round's name and its three point values. Write the word the audience chooses in square brackets with a hint, such as Two coworkers fight over the last [food] in the break room. Each prompt sits on its own tile:

• ✎ Edit opens a tile; ✓ Done (or Ctrl+Enter) keeps the change, and Cancel (or Esc) puts back what was there. While editing, 📚 Replace from library swaps in a library prompt.
• ✕ (click twice) empties a square.
• Drag a tile onto another square to swap them, in the same category or another. Drag a category by its ⠿ grip to move the whole column.
• ☆ hides an ALL PLAY under a square; click the ★ to take it away. Each round needs at least one, and a square with an ALL PLAY needs no prompt.
• 🎬 turns a square into a picture or video prompt: pick a file and it's uploaded to the site (pictures up to 15 MB, videos up to 95 MB). ✕ Remove media turns it back.

3Fill empty squares from the library

📚 From the library on an empty square opens a picker. It starts with prompts for that square's number of improvisers, best fits first; untick Only for … to see them all. Use puts the prompt in with its writer's credit and marks it used. ✎ Write one writes a prompt right there, and adds it to the library too.

4The prompt library

📚 Prompt library holds prompts for future shows:

• Submitted: sent in through the Google Form, and brought in by themselves.
• Written: added with ＋ Write a prompt, or written into a square in the show editor.
• From a show: copied from shows with ⤵ Add from a show.

Search and the menus narrow the list. A credited writer is named when their scene is revealed and in the thank-you at the end of the show.