I spoked with Gal Shenar, founder of Stoked Skills, about his best practices for building engaging voice-first games for Alexa.

Alexa customers love a good trivia game. During family game nights, players who have the answers get to show off their knowledge, while other players get to learn something new. With Echo Buttons, you have an opportunity to turn voice-first trivia games into engaging multiplayer experiences.

In total, mobile revenues will grow 25.5% year on year to reach $70.3 billion. This means that for the first time, more than half of all game revenues will come from the mobile segment. 

Aftering building with the new Gadgets Skill API (beta), I've gathered several key learnings for Alexa game skill developers. Here are some best practices to jump-start your own interactive games for Echo Buttons.

Gamers and developers of all backgrounds and expertise have come together for the week to play, learn, and be inspired at GDC. Here's what's happening on day 1.

At AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas today, we showcased the rapid evolution of games for Alexa. From games with gadgets to video games, Alexa is bringing new ways to play.

When the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) launched in late 2015, developers began building engaging experiences for voice, ranging from simple to innovative. Today, an interdisciplinary team of students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) is pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve. Meet Audrey Higgins (writer), Mohammed Tauseef (AWS and Unity integration), Na-Yeon Kim (2D/3D artist), Longyi Cheng (Unity Gameplay programmer), and Shuang You (3D artist).

Their class assignment: build a prototype, in two weeks, of a fully immersive virtual world. Specifically, the team created A.L.Ex.A. (The Assistant Linked Extemporization Array), a VR experience that follows a talkative repair drone destined to help users (or “guests” as they’re known in the VR world) stranded on remote system Planet 532.