Patent ID: 8118662

Claim:
A gaming system comprising: a plurality of gaming devices, each of said gaming devices including: at least one processor, at least one input device, at least one display device, and at least one memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to operate with the at least one display device and the at least one input device; and a controller configured to communicate with each of said gaming devices, said controller and said plurality of gaming devices configured to operate to: (a) display a plurality of masked group game components; (b) for each of said gaming devices: (i) enable a player of said gaming device to place at least one wager to play at least one play of a game; (ii) upon a modifier accumulation event, display and provide a quantity of at least one modifier; (iii) for each provided modifier, enable the player of that gaming device to apply said modifier to one of said displayed plurality of masked group game components regardless of whether another player applied any modifiers to said masked group game components; and (c) upon a group bonus triggering event: (i) determine a group game component award for each of a plurality of the masked group game components; (ii) for each gaming device, determine an award for the player of that gaming device based on: (A) the determined group game component award for each of the group game components having at least one modifier applied by the player of that gaming device; and (B) the modifiers applied by the player of that gaming device to said group game components; (iii) display and provide said determined award.