Alexa Minigames

Inspiration

I love playing word games but unfortunately my friends aren't always so enthuasistic! So we decided to create new Alexa skills so that we could play words games anytime we want!

What it does

We have added two new games to Alexa. The first is a definitions game. Alexa will give you an obscure word and two definitions. You then have to guess which the correct definition is. Here is an example: The word is vila. Does that mean 'satirical', or does it mean 'eastern european fairy or nymph'?

The second game is called Ghost. This is a word-building game where each player takes turns saying a letter. The goal is to always work towards the completion of a word without being the one to complete it. For example, if 'B', 'A', 'K' has been played you could play 'I' to work towards the word 'BAKING', but not 'E' as it would complete the word 'BAKE'.

How we built it

We built the new skill using the Amazon web service and developers console. The web service is written in python.

Challenges we ran into

It definitely took us a little bit longer than we had anticipated to understand the Amazon web service and developers console. However, when we had got the hang of it adding new functionality was relatively straightforward.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are happy that we managed to create an Alexa skill as we had no previous experience developing for Alexa.

What we learned

We learned how to use the Amazon web service and developers console and gained experience planning a project over a short timescale.

What's next for Alexa Minigames

Our focus in this project was to learn how to build an Alexa skill. Now that we have had this experience we would feel comfortable building more ambitious functionality in the future! (If only we had an Amazon Echo to develop for... )