The document discusses various types of games that can be built for Alexa including voice-first, voice-paired, and voice-assistant games. It provides examples of games like Panda Rescue and Bandit Buttons that utilize different Alexa skills capabilities. The document also covers best practices for skills like using session and persistent attributes to manage state across sessions, as well as new capabilities for skills like independent input channels and gadget controls.

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Supercharge Any Alexa Skill by
Understanding What Games Do
Azi Farjad
Senior Developer Evangelist
Alexa Skills
Paul Cutsinger
Developer Education
Alexa Skills
A L X 4 0 3 - R 2

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6. Voice has always been in the game,
what happens next is up to you

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Voice-first games

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Voice-paired games

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Voice-assistant games

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1. Memory
2. Cross-device integration
3. Variety
4. Context matching
5. Make money

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Panda Rescue
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Session attributes or persistent attributes
• Manage state within the context of
your current session
• Send the attributes you need in the
next response as part of the JSON
response
• Link a skill with a database via
persistent attributes
• Variables to be used in another
session

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Skill interceptors
Intent request: Skill attributes
Get session attributes and update accordingly throughout skill
RequestPersistenceInterceptor
If LaunchRequest: Set session attributes as persistent attributes
ResponsePersistenceInterceptor
If action completed that needs to reflect on main application, or Amazon.STOPIntent:
Set persistent attributes as session attributes

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Bandit Buttons
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New capabilities for skills
Independent
input event channel
Session extension Mic control

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Gadget controller directive
• Sequence
• Gadget IDs
• Trigger
Color
Duration
• Repeat

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GameEngine―threeBlues  playerWins
{
"type": "GameEngine.StartInputHandler",
"timeout": 30000,
"maximumHistoryLength": 256,
"recognizers": {
"threeBlues": {
"type": "match",
"fuzzy": false,
"anchor": “end",
"pattern”: [ { "action": "down", "colors": [ "0000FF" ], "repeat": 3" } ]
},
"events": {
"playerWins": {
”meets": [ "threeBlues" ],
“reports": "matches",
“shouldEndInputHandler": true
},
"timeout": {
"meets": [ "timed out" ],
"reports": "history",
"shouldEndInputHandler": true
}
}
}

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playerWins Event
{
"request": {
"type": "GameEngine.InputHandlerEvent",
"requestId": "amzn1.echo-api.request.e48235fc-077d-4ae7-adef-3064db6ab609",
"timestamp": "2018-11-26T09:54:44Z",
"locale": "en-US",
"originatingRequestId": "amzn1.echo-api.request.8013a5e5-5ab6-49eb-819b-7e00db5c92dd",
"events": [
{
"name": ”playerWins",
"inputEvents": [
{
"gadgetId": "amzn1.ask.gadget.05RPH7PJG9C61DHI4QR0RLOQOHKS31J6ECRU5T0LOVGB3UI6N",
"timestamp": "2018-08-21T21:54:44.017Z",
"color": ”0000FF",
"feature": "press",
"action": "down”
},
...
]
}
]
}
}

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GadgetController.SetLight
Structure:
{
"type": "GadgetController.SetLight",
"version": 1,
"targetGadgets": [ string ],
"parameters": {
"triggerEvent": string
"triggerEventTimeMs": int,
"animations": [
{
"repeat": int,
"targetLights": [ "1” ],
"sequence": [ { } ]
}
]
}
}
Animation Example:
“animations”: [
{
”repeat": 199,
"targetLights": [ “1” ],
”sequence": [
{
”durationMs": ”300",
”color": “00FF00”, // green
”blend": “true”
},
{
”durationMs": ”300",
”color": “0000FF”, // blue
”blend": “true”
}
]
}
]

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The magic door
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Images
Give voice a character
SSML Sounds

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SSML
<speak>
This morning when I woke up to come to re invent,
<prosody rate="x-slow">
I spoke quite slowly until I had my coffee.
</prosody>
<prosody volume="x-loud">
Then I felt alive.
</prosody>
</speak>

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Leveling in skill

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Web game
GUI Component
Amazon S3
Service
Amazon
DynamoDB

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In-skill purchases

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ISP user experience flow diagrams
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34. Thank you!
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@AziFarjad
@PaulCutsinger

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