Alexa Skills Summer Camp

Join us in this 5-part Twitch series to learn how to build an engaging voice-first game for Alexa in both English and Hindi. In this series, our host Karthik Ragubathy, an Alexa Architect, will demonstrate the concepts of building skills for Alexa taking a ‘Riddle’ voice-game as an example and building it live on Twitch. Watch as Karthik attempts to design, build, and make this amped up skill available on the Alexa Skill store.
In the Alexa Skills Summer Camp, we will dive into the following topics:
  • How to come up with an engaging voice-first game idea
  • The qualities all winning voice-first games have in common
  • Applying concepts of situational design to build storyboards
  • Leveraging the power of databases and gamification
  • Best practices in skill certification and publishing

Alexa Skills Summer Camp Schedule

Date: Monday, 13 April, 2020
Title: Ideation and Customer Backward Thinking
Description: The key to building an engaging skill is to spend quality time in the ideation and design process. In the first session of the Alexa Skills Summer Camp, we will ideate on what makes an engaging game skill, and define the customer experience through storyboards. We will talk about the best practices in Voice design, and incorporate some of the principles we discussed to design a skill that will make customers come back again and again.

Date: Tuesday, 14 April, 2020
Title: Build, Test, Localize
Description: After designing the customer experience of the skill with story-boarding, it is time to start developing. In this session, we will develop the skill’s core logic and also walk through the best practices of localizing skills in Hindi. Building skills for the local language model (Hindi) in addition to English, will help you reach a wider audience and drive more skill adoption.

Date: Wednesday, 15 April, 2020
Title: Power of Databases
Description: In this session we will explore the power of databases in skill development. We will make the game skill experience dynamic by connecting it to a Dynamo DB instance. We will look at multiple tactics that can be used to make the skill engaging for customers, and also implement some of them in the game skill.

Date: Thursday, 16 April, 2020
Title: Gamification
Description: A good Alexa game skill provides users with an intuitive voice experience, but a great skill keeps customers engaged and wanting for more. Gamification in an Alexa skill adds a delight factor in the customer experience. In this session we will learn how to build an in-skill leaderboard to reward customers on reaching milestones, and how to use the GameOn SDK to create players and tournaments..

Date: Friday, 17 April, 2020
Title: Certification and Publishing
Description: Publishing a skill alone will not ensure skill adoption by customers. In this last session, we will discuss the best practices to follow for skill name, skill metadata, skill icons, and more, before publishing a skill. We will also discuss the common pitfalls developers go through during the skill certification stage.