Dark's list of Amazon/alexa audiogames
Introduction
Here is a list of audiogames I have discovered on the Amazon Alexa platform which can be enabled using the "skills" tab.
Most are free as are all Alexa skills, though a couple link to services that create accounts and thus have a charge.
Additions, thoughts or updates to the list are always welcome, so please use This thread[/ for comments or suggestions
Note however that due to Amazon's policy, this list contains only skills I could access from the United Kingdom version of the Alexa app, since unfortunately not all developers make their skills available in all countries, even when the language is the same (dam them!).
to qualify as an audiogame an ap must:
1: Be completely accessible via audio alone such that a blind and sighted player could play equally. Thus quizzes with the odd visual question in the ap would not count.
2: Be an actual game with a goal and some way for the player to interact to achieve that goal. Unfortunately many of the skills in the "game's section, though often doing fun things like dispensing random facts about dragons or werewolves are not games a player can interact with.
Also note that these short descriptions contain actual reviews, ie, they represent my opinions, both positive and negative.
The list will be updated from time to time as I try more skills so check back. This does not however mean that Amazon skills will not get db pages, just that since many are comparatively short games, this is a quick and easy way to keep people informed of what is out there, as well as perhaps alert developers of these skills to the fact that the audiogaming community exists.
Now on with the list:
Six swords
An rpg with a lot of exploring. Take control of a group of mercenaries and slay your way around a vast map with turn based combat, towns to visit, dank underground caves, temples to weird gods.
With frequent updates, the chance to build castles, and lots of exploring this is definitely one for rpg fans, albeit don't express progress to be too quick.
I also personally found one or two bugs with a couple of commands, though sicne others don't report these it might just be me, or that the game doesn't like none Us English.
thanks to bookrage for providing some extra info about this one.
Beat the intro
Supposedly a music game where you hear the intros of songs and have to identify, however when we ran it we got a major advertising their version two and couldn't actually play the game itself which was annoying, I suspect there are new puzzles each day, but not getting the old ones and just being told how awesome their next version is is not exactly a way to recommend a game to new players.
Also, the game works on recorded audio from some dj or other and this is one instance where having Alexa voice the game would've been waaaaay less irritating D.
Basic adventure
The title isn't kidding. A really short Cyoa style game where you rescue a princess. The fact that I not only completed the game on my first attempt and! that the hole thing took me less than ten minutes likely tells you how much content this has.
Battlecry
Supposedly a skill where you get to battle people across the net in random duels.
One problem, to battle anyone you need their code. Since there are neither ai opponents, nor any way of searching for another player's code, nor (from what Google can tell me), a registered list of codes or similar there is literally no way to battle anybody!
So mmmm, is it a good game? I honestly don't know, but my code is blue panther twelve and anyone is free to give me a try and let me know, hay, let me know your code too .
Button button
Supposedly a cooperative clicker game in which people from all around the world click to press a button multiple times, however it is completely broken told me it couldn't connect to database everytime I tried it.
Bio Acoustics 101
If it weren't midnight I'd go and get my lady to show her this since it's perfect for animal lovers. Try and guess ten animal sounds whichgo from standard to unusual, you can also have the sounds demoed for you before you play to give you a head start.
My only two issues are firstly voice recognition is ropy if you choose an animal not in the list, eg, it didn't know the difference between a moose and a goose (which is sort of amusing), and secondly being as the animal sounds come from public domain sites the quality isn't always great, the cobra was barely audible.
Still good fun if you like animals.
British train empire
Thanks to Cyko for recommending this one. A simple economic stratogy game where you build stations and tracks linking cities together, and then run trains to earn prophet. unfortunately, the game only has a few cities, also unfortunately, once you've built one station and connected it to another there is no way of seeing what other cities it might connect to, so unless your geography is far better than mine you do have to guess a little.
A relaxing game for stratoggists complete with leaderboard, though I do wish it included a few more stations and a bit more about the trains.
There is also an American train empire version, but that one didn't show up in the Uk version of Alexa.
Categories game
A really fun word game of the think of a so and so beginning with letter such and such the shortest time possible. What is really cool is that the more you play the more categories you unlock, and being asked to think of a superhero beginning with y is sort of amusing. Speech recognition can sometimes be a bit glitchy, but not so much as to spoil the game.
Code word
Alexa thinks of a word, and gives you a clue, if you don't guess it first time you get another. The fewer clues you use the more points over five rounds (I think the max score is 300).
A rather fun game, especially since there are new code words each week including categories, however, if you play a second game after the first the codes seem to be generalised.
also, some of the questions are rather American centric here, for example one word had the first clue"Prone to hurricanes", the second "lots of beaches", and only at the third "contains Miami" did we realize it was Florida, since there are lots of other places in the world that are prone to hurricanes and contain lots of beaches .
Chance dungeon
An entertaining little rpg/adventure game in the traditional of old dos adventures. Wander around what I assume is a procedurally generated map looking for treasure hoping the gods of random encounters are kind to you, while making choices about where to go.
To what extent your choices actually have an effect I don't know, still it's rather fun and does have some quite cool combat descriptions, not to mention a fair few encounters and indeed a way to actually win if your lucky. One of these games which is surprisingly addictive for how simple it is.
Chance starship
A game from the same dev as chance dungeon (really wish you could show skills by creator in your skills tab or in the categories rather than having to use google search or search for the creator's name).
pretty much the same thing with an out of power starship and aliens instead of a dungeon and fantasy monsters, and equally as fun.
Caves under thorn hill
A remake of the classic maze game of hunt the wumpus. Wander through numbered caves and try to use logic to find the monster without being carried around by bats or dropping into a pit or being eaten .
Each cave connects to three numbered caves, when there is something nasty in one of those three caves you'll be informed, so use calculated risk and logic based on which caves you have and haven't visited to avoid the hazards and track the beast.
A nice short game of logic though manifestly not an rpg, just a shame there is so little descriptive or even congratulations text in this one which makes it feel like a numbers game.
Colossal cave adventure
The grand daddy of all interactive fiction games, puzzle your way through the caves to find the treasures (really is there nobody who hasn't! heard of this one?). Speech recognition seemed pretty good, albeit parsing can still be as interesting as in the original.
Dark cave
This one is interesting. Though like caves of thorn hill this is supposedly based on Hunt the wumpus, the feeling is far more that of a maze audiogame.
Wander around a grid based cave searching for a monster and pits. The catch is no coordinates, no directional information, just logic about when your next to a square containing a pit or monster. Of course we all really! know that anyone would be able to tell what direction the stench of the monster or the draught of the pits was coming from, but hay! it's a nice logic challenge and also cool that a sighted developer came up with what is almost like an audiogame in text (it reminded me slightly of inquisitor's heartbeat).
Doctor who trivia
Very similar to some other trivia games I've seen. Five questions per round, probably a reasonable selection. Nice for having a mix of classic and modern doctor who topics, though a shame it didn't give more info about the background and stories the answers to the questions came from.
Dungeon adventure
Your classic dungeon hacknslash, actually it sort of reminded me of a roguelike , accept obviously without the ascii. combat is particularly good in this one since you have a lot of options, though death is very harsh. Cursed items, spells, lots of fun stuff.
The only major downer is every new game you must create a character from scratch rolling all your attributes, which can be time consuming, still if your an rpg fan this is one not to miss.
Escape room
Think zork style interactive fiction with an alexa and you have it. Contains two games so far, merlin's cave and ancient tomb both of which are your usual puzzles in an underground labyrinth style adventures.
Quite an interesting setup actually and generally free from "guess the verb" since you only have to use one item with another, albeit the search command seems a bit wonky.
Apparently it will be expanded with more rooms, ie, more adventures, in the future.
Earplay
The makers of Codename Signas (and there is even a port of that). launch an environment for creating interactive stories. A bit sparse so far but I really hope they release more Echo since the speech recognition technology is so much better than the Iphone (I could only get the Ios version of Codename signas to accept speech while wearing earphones).
This is one that does require account creation, and I suspect there will be paid games eventually, though none seem to be around at the moment.
Fidgit spinner
More of an audio toy than a game, but one that is actually quite fun in a pointless way. Spin the spinner and see how many spins you get, get a high enough number of spins and you can level up.
Each level you get five or six new spinners to play with, each with a new audio sound and different special abilities.
I'm not sure what the special abilities do, but being able to spin over the rainbow or at the rainbow's end on a rainbow spinner with a tinkly sound is sort of nice .
My only major problem with this one is that it doesn't save, but since the random numbers are relatively generous getting through the different levels and seeing the spinners doesn't take too much repetition.
I'll admit that I was surprised to find this one as amusing as it was.
Forest adventure
Another attempt at interactive fiction with alexa, but this one far more buggy, showing exits one can't actually exit through and items you can't pick up, not to mention other interaction commands such as "read book" that don't work right at all. Quite frustrating.
General Triva
eight quick multiple choice trivia questions and a score out of eight. Good variety of different topics for
questions, though playing a few times unfortunately seemed to repeat questions so the question bank for this probably isn't as large as one would like. i'd love to find a true trivial pursuit type game for Alexa, something like the way trivia crack used to be on Ios before it went stupid, but this isn't it.
Ghost detector
This one is still under development apparently. At the moment each day you can launch the ghost detector, detect a ghost and then catch it. One mildly irritating thing is that you have to relaunch the skill each time, eg, you say "alexa" launch ghost detector and catch a ghost" or even "alexa launch ghost detector and help"
Ghosts you catch give you ghost bux, which will be used to unlock missions and things down the line, but now are just collectable.
While the ghosts aren't described, the fact that they are somewhat procedurally generated is pretty cool, and of course you can detect several ghosts and try to build up a collection of them .
At the moment it's a mild amusement, but depending upon where this one goes it could be pretty awesome, so it's one to watch.
Goats of fortune
I confess I tried this one just for the name much as anything else. A bit like the old game show take your pick or the American version Deal or no deal though actually with a bit of strategy behind it.
3 doors in each round, two of them have goats behind them meaning no cash for you, one of them has money, however your offered a bribe take the money and walk on to the next round.
If you get a goat you get nothing, however you can also run across explosive goats which mean you lose all your cash.
What is nice in this one is to progress you have to make a certain amount of money in a number of rounds, and progressing raises your rank higher.
A nice and very silly game to spend five minutes with.
Harry potter trivia game,
Pretty much same as the Doctor who (I wonder if there is a template for these somewhere), Five harry potter questions per round. nice in terms of questions being not the obvious ones, though two play throughs showed repeats so I'm not sure on the longevity of this one. Also, a shame wasn't more info about the answers.
Holiday song quiz
From Volley Link, the same people who make a fair few of these games. This is a christmas song quiz where you get 7 questions and need to give the song and artist to get 20 points a go. Can be played multiplayer.
Voice recognition is good, though manifestly catagories are a little limited.
The only slightly irritating thing is that when I checked Volley link's website, there is a regular song quiz game they do, but one which doesn't show up in the uk alexa yet, though weirdly enough this one did.
Improved trivia
This is a great game ruined by annoying bugs. You can select number of questions, whether you want multiple choice or boullion, how many between 1 and 50, what difficulty, including easy, medium and hard, and most crytically in what category. With a list of categories ranging from anime to books to nature, there is a huge amount available.
The only problem is, firstly the interface is clunky. You have to set each variable individually through help, and often the game will start before your ready, or continue when you've finished. Most crytically wrong is the problem that the categories don't seem to work, eg, we tried a quiz on books and were asked comparatively obscure anime questions or questions on the rules of snooker.
if this one got the bugs fixed it'd be awesome.
Jeopardy
Credit to Bookrage:
A trivia game inspired by the American quiz show where you answer questions in forms of a question.
The game lets you play each day with catagories from the program, and features samples from the actual host (Mrs. Dark was quite amused at hearing him).
Apparently you can play double Jeopardy if you have an Amazon prime account where you get 12 questions instead of six, but I couldn't get this to work, and judging by a couple of the other reviews, other people had trouble with this too.
Memory match
Play A single player game of Concentration with Alexa. the classic take two cards and match them game, all you need to do is tell Alexa the row and column of the cards you want.
A nice exercise, though I do wish you could change number of cards in the game, since right now it's always at twelve arranged in a 4 x 3 grid. A little odd since the symbols on cards are procedurally generated so you'd think there would be more options. Also, I do find it a bit harsh that if you match a pair you've already matched, Alexa counts it as an extra move so you end up with a low score if you can't recall the coordinates of the last card exactly and need to go through the board. Harder than you would think given you have no way to examine the board between moves.
It'd also be nice to have a multiplayer option for this, though hopefully it'll be expanded in the future..
Memory training recall
Similar to train my brain (I wonder if it's the same developer). You get a little story and are asked details about it. Actually a very cool idea and especially good if you like taking in audio information.
My one miner complaint is it seemed nearly impossible to get this ap to stop, or to get a score, but fun all the same.
Millionaire quiz
A very accurate version of THE quiz show who wants to be a millionair, though sadly without the actual money . Even down to asked every time if "this is your final answer" and getting stalling comments from the host who isn't quite as irritating for this as Chris tarant used to be on the Uk version, but almost
.
Mind maze
This one is a simple but unique brain teaser from the same devs as 6 swords. Make your way out of a maze starting in one corner and get to another. The problem however is you can do mazes in more DIMENSIONS which EFFECTIVELY MEAN more exit types. At the start you get basic 2d n s e w type affairs, add third dimension and you get up and down, add another for in and out, and you can go up to six, all with coordinates.
The only miner thing I did notice is that for some reason in and out are the wrong way around, meaning you have to say out to go in and visa versa.
Question of the day
Thanks to orko for pointing out this one. A daily multiple choice trivia question, though also with badges to earn, bonus questions and point ranking if you link your account with the Amazon skills.
Rather fun, especially what percentage of players got the answer right or wrong (I was rather appalled to find out 11 percent of people did not! know who wrote a Christmas Carol).
Shadow realm
From Daisfly, the same developers as escape room. Another and longer interactive fiction game. The writing in this one actually is QUITE atmospheric, albeit I got slightly stuck and the free version doesn't have hints .
to get the paid version you have to go to the website and make an account, though it's just three dollars, though whether I'll do that probably will depend upon me making a bit more progress in the free game.
Sorting game for Harry potter
Not really sure if this is a game or not but hay. Take the sorting hat test. What is quite nice is there seems to be quite a range of questions, and the questions aren't simple (don't expect to be asked if your favourite animal is a lion, snake, eagle or badger).
Both Mrs. Dark and I wound up in Ravenclaw, which is a bit odd.
Starlanes
A Mmorpg for the alexa by the same dev as 6 swords resembling trade wars where you fight for two factions by flying to different star systems and dropping drones off. Again, a game with a lot to it that I'm just trying to work out, but potentially fun, especially for strategy fans.
Stone game
Okay this one is a major bust, it's the sticks game from crazy party, the one where each player needs to take one two or three sticks from a pile and the one with the last stick loses. Only problem? The game is %100 fixed the computer's favour. if you know the formula for winning you can see from the first move your doomed, and with neither the order of players nore number of stones changeable it's pretty pointless.
Strange halls
A maze game, but one with surreal descriptions of your surroundings. What I particularly like here is that you choose the colour of what door to go through rather than a number or direction, which makes it more of a memory test. I thought this one was a simple Cyoa affair, then when I tried it second time I realize the maze is different each time you play which is always nice, albeit there is no combat or such in this one, just tracking your way out of said maze.
Sub war
Another game from the creator of 6 swords. Sort of a mix of classic battleships and a lone wolf style sub combat game. listen for enemy subs and sink them with your torps. Actually rather fun for a quick burst, though I'm trying to work out tactics at the moment.
The magic door
This is an amusing cyoa style game with a fairy tale atmosphere. I suspect it's nominally aimed at kids but the descriptions are nice, and they produce more adventures and content on a regular basis. Actually the shear amount of content in this one is quite surprising. I also like the way you get progress over multiple adventures with characters you've met in one turning up in another etc. The use of sounds is nice too even if some characters like the fairies themselves have voices so cute I wanted to strangle them .
Trivia crack
I got excited initially with this one, since I thought it was an Alexa version of the sadly now inaccessible Iphone game. unfortunately it seems not. Start a quiz in easy, medium or hard with multiple choice questions.
Unfortunately the game is quite buggy and I suspect programmed by a none native English speaker, not the least because some of the questions are phrased rather oddly.
You need to be very precise in what you say, eg you actually need to phrase your instructions "begin a quiz in medium difficulty" no variation will do.
The quizzes comprise just three questions and then the program says goodbye and shuts down. when you answer a question, The game gives you no information, just says "answer correct or incorrect", indeed sometimes I'm not sure whether it registered the right number answer or not. And the most major issue is that for some odd reason, Alexa's speaking speed slows right down in this skill.
Very disappointing and not one I'd recommend which is a shame.
The valley of the ivory dragon
This seems to be a homage to legend of the green dragon on alexa. You go to a village to slay a dragon, can look for trouble in forest, enter the healers hut and battle monsters and get random encounters (it even has silver and gems as currency and a format for it's monsters of "you have encountered x which lunges at you with Y").
The only two problens are firstly there is no help meaning you have to guess at the commands and such, not to mention basic facts like when the game days refresh (assuming it has game days), or how much xp you need to level, and secondly, there is a really! irritating encounter where you hit your head, lose all but one hp and all your gems which seems to show up extremely often.
since it takes nearly all your silver to heal from this first time around, and it's prone to show up twice in a row, progress is frustratingly difficult.
Lastlyy and most seriously, saving seems weird in the game. If you die or run away and are told to come back then start the game later, the game resets . This is quite annoying indeed! though I'll do a little experimentation and see if I can work out what's going on here.
I'll probably persist because I am bloody minded and because I suspect there is more by way of random encounters and such out there when you get going, not to mention more combat moves etc, but I'm surprised they left things in such a basic and buggy state.
Train your brain
A short quiz with teasers, maths problems, number sequences. I like the fact that with this one you are deliberately supposed to answer quickly and can't repeat the question.
Only two problems, firstly the game sometimes doesn't recognize input and marks questions down for no reason, and secondly if your two quick with the answers and don't wait for the ding you actually crash the game .
True or false
Absolutely what it says on the tin. Five true or false questions with stat tracking and regular updates, nice for their descriptions and extra facts. Possible to play with more than one player, which Mrs. Dark and I liked.
Trump against humanity
Warning! if you are a Donald trump fan this is not for you.
if however your opinion of Donald trump's is like Mrs. Dark's then you would find it amusing.
Distinguish the real vs fake tweets from his trumpesty, and earn inspirational messages from everyone's favourite American president.
Very well put together, and only included on this games list by virtue of actually being a game, but very very funny if your humour is inclined that way.
Btw, I asked my lady if her opinion of Donald Trump was lower than her opinion of Cockroaches, she said it was probably a close thing since Trump wouldn't make her want to stand on a table and scream, but probably would! cause her to vigorously employ a fly swatter if he were in her immediate vicinity .
Unofficial eight pages
Recommendation by Cyko. This is similar to the Slenderman lost vision audiogame. Wander around creepy locations looking for pages while being chased by a creature who distorts sounds (I think it's slenderman, though it's not named in the game).
On the plus side, speech recognition was flawless in this one and the sounds are damn creepy!
On the minus side, the game plays very slowly, some of the commands are just plane odd, eg, @turn around the old truck 2@ to search, and while the sounds are creepy, hearing a long burst of them everytime you move quickly loses their appeal, as do the generic Alexa responses such as @there there@ or @now now@ you get when you do something.
There was also little to no description, and to even get directions of what is around you on the map you needed to say help each move. It was also physically impossible to actually die, since if you run into a square with the creature, your asked if you want to go back, and then can take the same direction again with no trouble. The creature also doesn't interupt while your random searching, which unfortunately you do lots and lots and lots! of, indeed after looking for the last page for a solid half hour I actually gave up with this.
A potentially nice idea but not a game I would recommend I'm afraid.
volley family trivia game
Similar to True or false in that it has true or false questions, but slightly different in it's stat tracking and that . also where true or false works by having rounds and seeing who gets the most, Volley family trivia works by sudden death.
volley trivia head to head show down
Same as above, however instead of playing with one or more players live, you play against actual humans across the internet, also rather than being sudden death, the game has 7 questions and you earn points.
volley daily trivia
Seven new trivia questions each day with percentage tracking vs you and all other players.
Voice duel
A streight up numeric duel for Alexa with different skills of opponents, experience, stat boosters, turn based combat and global rankings.
A neat idea (even though the amount of descriptive or atmospheric text here is minimal), however the fact the stat boosters you get to raise your stats on levelling up don't actually work makes this one a bit pointless .
Word games - anagrams, hang man and more
This is an idea which is really good but an execution with problems.
Hear an anagram and solve, with progressive difficulty, stat tracking, increasing scores and even I believe more games.
one problem? The voice recognition was very ropy. Mrs. Dark said alexa didn't like her, and judging on this she's sort of right, since the game didn't understand her and we kept being docked points for wrong guesses.
It did work for me, so I don't know if Alexa is just not good at having two people use one device, though being as we didn't have the same problem in other trivia games I suspect this is an issue with the word games.
Also lots! of game crashes in this one which was irritating, since the principle of the thing is such a good one.
Word of the day quiz
Gives you an unusual word each day (the first one I tried was Salebrosity), and asks you a quiz about that word.
there is a connected flash briefing to hear the word of the day, and then word of the day quiz where you can answer questions.
Rather nice for having a quiz show host and some fairly funny humour, indeed I confess to enjoying this one more on the second or third go due to me getting a little more used to the announcer's voice which I initially found offputting.
The audio prizes you get for logging in each day are also fun, methinks Mrs. Dark and I will enjoy this one.
Word Tennis
This is another word game similar to the categories game. Alexa names a category such as fruits and Vegetables, countries, olimpic sports activities or world capitals then says an item in that category. You hear the sound of a tennis ball bounce, and have to return the serve to Alexa by saying something in the same category, only problem is it can't be an item that's already been used. At the end you get a ralley which is your score.
The only problem with this one is that usually games end when Alexa doesn't recognise something and decides you've made a mistake. For example after a long 41 word ralley inn countries, Mrs. Dark lost out because Alexa planely hadn't heard of Greenland, and Alexa arbitrarily decided to make me lose when she forgot that Paris is a world capital.
A fun game, if a little unfair due to the bugs.
World detective
Credit to Psycho for this one.
A trivia/geography game in which you must track down a criminal or missing person through clues about what countries they're visiting, eg, if your told a person admires the work of Chopin the answer would be poland.
A nice test of general knowledge and geography in an entertaining setting, albeit when i tried the voice recognition did manage to confuse Belgium and Brazil which was sort of amusing, if a little irritating.
I also like the fact that the dramatic English male voice rather than Alexa's standard female one is used for this game.
Yes sire
This one really is a favourite that I've fired up several times.
From the same developer as the Volley trivia games, You are a lord put in charge of a kingdom and need to keep things running. Your adviser will ask you for your opinion on various matters and you just say yes or no. Depending upon how things work out your influence and wealth will either go up or down. Obviously if your influence or wealth go to low, you lose, however the problem is if they go too high the king will see you as a threat and have you executed .
So you actually have to occasionally be randomly nasty to keep things going.
Lots of different events in this one, plus what is doubly cool is Alexa's voice changes to a dramatic sounding guy for the duration of the game .
Also annoyingly, apparently there is a @yes Mr. President@ version of this game, once again isn't available in the Uk grrrr!
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