The Talking App: From (A)lexa to (Z)ork. Creating interactive fiction for Alexa

In this example-driven session, we'll use the Skill Flow Builder to create an interactive fiction game for Alexa from the ground up. We'll see how to manage the player's inventory of items, apply conditional effects, and add sounds and imagery to bring interactive fiction games to the voice-first generation.

“You are standing in a room with a table. On the table is black cylindrical device with the word 'Amazon' on the side. What do you want to do next?”

For as long as there have been computers, there have been computer games. Some of the earliest games were text-based adventure games like Colossal Cave Adventure and the Zork series. These games invited intrepid adventurers to use their imagination and wits to navigate complex worlds, solving puzzles to achieve the game's objective. Modern games are far more sophisticated than those early text adventures. Even so, there was still something amazingly endearing and fun about exploring caves and dungeons looking for treasure in games that were more like books where you are the main character.

Voice-enabled devices like Alexa are now breathing new life into the interactive fiction game genre. Rather than typing in your next move, you can speak it to Alexa; and she will describe the outcome to you, possibly with music and sound effects to set the mood. When played on a screen-based Alexa device, images can accompany the textual description for a richer immersion into the fictional world.