Through Alexa Skill development, you can create Alexa gaming experiences that put players in control like never before.
Imagine this:
In this article
- Why Build Games Through Alexa Skill Development?
- How to Build Your Own Alexa Game
- Creating Alexa Games Using Amazon Skill Blueprints
- Creating Narrative-Driven Alexa Games Using Amazon Skill Flow Builder
- Narration and Voice Over Strategies for Alexa Games
- Best Narration and Voice Over Strategies for Quiz and Trivia Games
- Using Engaging Voice Over Strategies for Educational Alexa Games
- Voice Over Narration Strategies for Adventure-Based Alexa Games
- Top 3 Alexa Adventure Game Voice Over Strategies
- Companion Voice Over in Adventure Games
- Absent Voice Over in Adventure Games
- Narrator Style Voice Over in Adventure Games
- Ready to Create Your Own Alexa Game
You’re facing a fire-breathing dragon.
Instead of looking for a place to hide, you say, “Alexa, give me a flying unicorn,” and voila, you are suddenly hovering over the dragon on the extraordinary creature.
This is the beauty of creating voice-controlled games through Alexa Skill development and generating stellar gaming experiences for audiences everywhere.
Voice technology is rapidly improving, recognizing different voices, languages, and accents through devices like smart speakers, cars, and mobile phones. Voice-controlled games have an audience like never before, enticing people with the chance to enter their favorite gaming world with just the use of their voice.
Learn about the different kinds of Alexa games, and how people of all technical skill levels can create their own voice games with Alexa Skill development.
Why Build Games Through Alexa Skill Development?
Developing voice-controlled games for Alexa is useful for content creators from a variety of industries, including gaming developers, brands, and anyone wishing to build games that create rich experiences for people around the world.
Amazon Alexa is one of the leading digital assistants in the market, equipped with more third-party connectivity options than Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Bixby. This incredibly widespread reach allows your game to reach a huge audience, creating the possibility of having a loyal fanbase.
Voicebot.ai reports that the number of Amazon Alexa Skills in the U.S. doubled in 2018, while the U.K. saw a massive 233% growth. This should be enough to persuade you to become a part of such a rapidly growing industry by developing games that cater to a variety of users, like avid gamers, instructors, business professionals, parents, teenagers, and more. Alexa games can even supplement educational and corporate training, parties, and day-to-day life.
How to Build Your Own Alexa Game
Creating Alexa Games Using Amazon Skill Blueprints
One of the best parts of Alexa Skill development is that people of all technical abilities can quickly and easily create their own Alexa Skill.
Amazon’s Alexa Blueprint tool allows you to create an account and follow step-by-step tutorials to start your Alexa Skill development process. If you select the ‘Fun & Games’ option under templates, you can browse hundreds of templates that’ll help you create your Alexa game.
Amazon’s Alexa Blueprint templates have three main sections:
- Content
- Experience
- Name
Each section comes with pre-filled content, which you can use if you want to. The Blueprint platform allows you to customize your game by choosing the winning voice responses, and different gaming experiences such as game shows, quizzes, etc. It even comes with Alexa voice customization options such as responses, narration, etc.
Creating Narrative-Driven Alexa Games Using Amazon Skill Flow Builder
If you’re creating a narrative-driven Alexa game, the Amazon Skill Flow Builder will help you design one. The development program includes a Skill Flow Builder Editor application for game designers and writers and a Visual Studio Code extension for developers.
As a game designer or writer, you can easily modify the content of your gaming project. Additionally, all the tools share a source file format, which helps make handoffs between teams more efficient.
Narration and Voice Over Strategies for Alexa Games
Using the perfect narration strategy for your Alexa game is crucial, as the vocal interaction is the heart of the gaming experience and the most important audience engagement tool.
When it comes to narration for your game, you have three options:
- The default synthetic voice (the voice of Alexa)
- A branded synthetic or text-to-speech voice
- A human voice over
It’s important to note that you may opt to use one of these voices exclusively throughout the whole game or mix options. For instance, an adventure game may include setting the scene with human narration that brings the various characters to life, while Alexa’s default voice may be used when you want to prompt the user to take an action that drives the story forward.
One way to weigh which narration strategy to use is to let the content and genre of your Alexa game determine whether you should use a branded synthetic or human voice over.
Best Narration and Voice Over Strategies for Quiz and Trivia Games
If you’re creating a science quiz or movie trivia that follows a less interactive script, a synthetic voice will be a great choice for your game. You can also choose to use the text-to-speech tool and integrate it with a custom synthetic voice, which will allow the synthetic voice to appear human-like.
On the other hand, if you’re creating a quiz that follows the game show format, an announcer-style human voice over will be a great option. By using a human voice over for such a game, you can create a unique personality for the game host.
By using a voice that you’ve created via great artistic direction, you can create a personality that can be kind and encouraging, offering hints to the players, or a saucy, know-it-all host with a witty personality, like Family Feud’s Steve Harvey. By choosing the human voice route, you can look for a talented voice actor with the appropriate voice qualities the role requires.
Hint: Learn how to provide great voice over direction.
Using Engaging Voice Over Strategies for Educational Alexa Games
A successful learning game needs to keep the players engaged with the content, especially if the learners are young kids, who tend to get distracted pretty easily.
To ensure that your Alexa game has a magnetic voice that pulls your audience into the learning experience, consider the format of learning content.
For instance, games that help learners pick up on reading and comprehension may benefit more from having a human narrator who guides them through a story and fills the tale with emotional nuance.
However, for games that are focused on quick problem solving, like math, a synthetic or text-to-speech voice may be efficient for the developer, while still providing a great user experience for the learner.
Voice Over Narration Strategies for Adventure-Based Alexa Games
Adventure Alexa games rank high on user ratings on the Amazon Marketplace, and so you must carefully design one to beat the tough competition.
Here’s a roundup of narration strategies, so you can find one that suits your adventure game.
Top 3 Alexa Adventure Game Voice Over Strategies
Companion Voice Over in Adventure Games
Most choose-your-own-adventure games have companion voices that assist the players during exciting missions. Companion voices can be synthetic or human, based on what kind of experience you’re looking to create.
An outer space mission game may sound more fun with a synthetic-style voice guiding the players through different galaxies, while a jungle mission will probably fare better with an authoritative and wise human voice.
The demand will not only change with the genre but also with the nature of the content you design for your voice-controlled game.
Absent Voice Over in Adventure Games
Absent voice games are like Universal Studios’ Jurassic World, where the entire story is pre-recorded by voice actors because the content remains the same for each level. It is called an absent voice because Alexa doesn’t assume any position in the game. She is merely a narrator and the main guidance tool for players. You can hire multiple voice actors to record a great script for such an adventure game, keeping the audience engaged during the storytelling process.
Narrator Style Voice Over in Adventure Games
If your adventure game has a high level of player interaction and involves Alexa describing what is happening around the player, like an impartial mediator, using an appropriate human voice will make the experience more believable.
Several role-playing games use this type of strategy, letting the players quickly immerse themselves in the game. It is similar to role-playing games (RPG) but with the bonus of voice-control gameplay.
Ready to Create Your Own Alexa Game
These narration and voice over strategies will help you develop an Alexa game that stands out from the crowd and attracts an appreciative audience.
By developing such an Alexa game, you become a part of the future of voice-controlled gaming, getting the opportunity to enrich people’s lives.
If you’re planning an Alexa gaming project, get started on Voices to post your job and find the perfect voice over today.
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