After months of hard work from Alexa developers around the world, the Alexa Skill Challenge: Multimodal has concluded. The challenge invited developers to build Alexa multimodal skills using the Alexa Presentation Language (APL) that provide rich and engaging customer experience across devices. Last week, we held our final judging event to determine the grand prize winner from the 10 finalists selected, as well as the bonus prize winners.

What Developers Said About APL and the Alexa Skills Challenge: Multimodal

Thank you to everyone who participated and worked hard to submit an entry to this challenge. We appreciate your passion and hard work. As part of the process, we loved hearing about your APL skill-building experience and feedback. Here’s what developers had to say about APL and the challenge.

Rich and Engaging Customer Experience: “APL will continue to bring us more rich and interactive features that customers love and have come to expect. Pairing voice, visuals, and touch can only really be done at scale and with an audience by developing for Alexa,” says Ben Ursu, the developer of Fork On the Road.

Creative Freedom: “APL excites me because it provides more context that you can add. APL gives developers lots of freedom to create visuals for voice games and this can make voice games more approachable for users that are new to the concept,” says Cameron Sheedy, the developer of Crazy Conversation.

Collaborative Alexa Developer Community: “I really like APL as it’s easy to understand and work with. I would really like to give a shout out to the Alexa developer community for always being there to help each other, including me many times when I needed it!” says Stuart Pocklington, the developer of Loop It.

Congratulations to All the Winners!

Grand Prize Winner ($20,000) – Loop It (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can create amazing sounding loops by choosing your favorite drum, bass, and melody loops.

“Loop It! takes advantage of the amazing Alexa Presentation Language to show visuals on multimodal devices and lets customers interact with the skill either by voice or touch. I focused heavily on a voice first experience, and APL allowed me to add the icing onto the cake. Loop It! is a one-of-a-kind skill but I believe there’s huge untapped potential in music creation on Alexa,” says Stuart Pocklington, the developer of Loop It.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Living Room experience ($3,000 USD) -Crazy Conversations (watch the submission video, try the skill): You will be given a clue that sounds like nonsense and you need to figure out what it is trying to say.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Kitchen experience ($3,000 USD) - Fork On the Road  (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can add up to four things for the fork to choose from, and the fork will help you make a decision.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Morning experience ($3,000 USD) - Poet Challenge (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can learn about British poetry by playing fun games.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Bedtime experience ($3,000 USD) -Story Stream: Binge-worthy Bedtime Stories (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can listen to immersive stories before going to bed.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Kids Skill experience ($3,000 USD) - Kids Karaoke (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can play familiar tunes from your childhood and play them on a karaoke mode to sing along with family and friends.

Bonus Prize - Best Multimodal Experience Integrating In-Skill Purchases ($3,000 USD) - Guess my name! (watch the submission video, try the skill): It’s a guessing game and you are given a series of clues in a certain category.

Bonus Prize - Germany Store ($3,000) - Movie Quiz (watch the submission video, try the skill): You will be given emojis that describe a movie and guess what movie it is.

Bonus Prize - France Store ($3,000) - My Spanish Friend (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can learn Spanish by answering the requests of a fictitious Spanish prince. He does not speak English, but the skill gives you the contextual information you need.

Bonus Prize - India Store ($3,000) - Bulls & Cows (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can enhance your logical thinking and problem solving skills playing a series of games.

Bonus Prize - UK Store ($3,000) - Story World (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can give the main character in the story your own name, and choose which route the story will take.

Bonus Prize - Australia Store ($3,000) - Deadly Questions (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can learn from Aboriginal Victorians about their history and how it affects their lives today.

Bonus Prize - Mexico Store ($3,000) - Trabalenguas Cortos (watch the submission video, try the skill): You can learn Spanish while having fun by playing more than 350 Spanish tongue twister games.

Bonus Prize - Spain Store ($3,000) - Palabras británicas (watch the submission video, try the skill): The skill challenges you to learn new English words every day for Spanish speakers.

Bonus Prize - Italy Store ($3,000) - Le fiabe di Nonno Merlino (watch the submission video, try the skill): An ancient wizard called Grandpa Merlin reads traditional fairy tales, and you can interact with the plot.

Try the Winning Skills and Get Inspired

When you get a chance, try the winning skills and see how they used APL to create engaging voice-first multimodal experiences. As always, share your APL feedback and questions on the Alexa developer forum and make sure add the "APL" topic to your post.

Resources to Build Multimodal Skills with APL

• See What Others Have Built with APL
• How to Design with the Alexa Presentation Language Components to Create New Voice-First Experiences in Your Alexa Skill
• 10 Tips for Designing Alexa Skills with Visual Responses
• 4 Tips for Designing Voice-First Alexa Skills for Different Alexa-Enabled Devices
• How to Design Visual Components for Voice-First Alexa Skills
• How to Quickly Update Your Existing Multimodal Alexa Skills with the Alexa Presentation Language
• New Alexa Skill Sample: Learn Multimodal Skill Design with Space Explorer
• New Alexa Skill Sample: Learn Multimodal Skill Design with Sauce Boss