Bag of Giggles - #AmazonAlexaSkillsChallengeKids

Bag of Giggles Launch Screen

Inspiration

Our inspiration was taking traditional kids party games and re-imagining them for Alexa. Laughs, giggles and fun was the goal. And we wanted a game where technology was an enabler but the real fun came from the kids themselves.

What it does

Bag of Giggles is a mashup of classic party games - Would You Rather, Tongue Twisters and parts of Charades (the acting/pretending part with talking/noises allowed!).

A group of 1-10 kids starts, each chooses a fun nickname and then the rounds begin. For every round, Alexa asks each player a silly question or a silly to-do and the fun begins. Laughs ensue!

The game works great on any Alexa device but is extra special on the Echo Show where we use fun graphics to enhance game play and bring about more Giggles!

How we built it

Core logic is in Node.js on Lamda. The NLP/NLU configuration and game metadata is in ASK (Alexa Skills Kit), DynamoDB is used to maintain state.

Challenges we ran into

Session management on Alexa is challenging. Also getting formatting as you want it on the Echo Show is challenging - we pine for HTML/JS on the Echo Show!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of our game - kids who have played it like it a lot! More Giggles is the goal!

What we learned

Do's and don'ts of session management and Echo Show formatting were the key learnings.

What's next for Bag of Giggles

More Giggles! Enhancing Game play with additional content for sure. We like to get an even better UI experience on the Show and work on a great UI experience on the Spot.