You can play with an interactive preview of Star Commander Alexa skill here:

Ray had started with the Alexa ASK Console and built several of the example skills from the Github library. However, he did not publish anything until he discovered the Storyline platform.

Here’s what he thinks about building Alexa skills with Storyline:

“It was amazing to be able to concentrate on the content rather than the technology. This would not have been possible without the Storyline platform.”

Kid’s Hub, by George Collier

Kid’s Hub Alexa skill built on Storyline.

Kid’s Hub Alexa skill is a collection of games for kids and families to play together. It aims to reduce the need to download multiple skills and can be the one stop shop for kid’s games on Alexa.

The reason George picked the idea is that there’s no skill in the store with more than one game inside of it, so he took the opportunity to create Kid’s Hub. It aims to be fun and competitive, and easily accessible.

The thing I like most about this skill is the skill icon. It’s memorable & straightforward, and perfectly describes the use case.

Firstly, George decided which games he was going to include, and which would take advantage of Storyline’s features the best. In the end, he came up with games like pictionary and charades which give users suggestions of what to do (e.g draw this or act like that) from two Google Spreadsheets. Furthermore, among mini-games, it includes ‘My Morning Routine’ which helps kids get ready for school in the morning, reminding them what they need, as well as giving sleep tips if necessary. Also, the Kiddy Olympics allows users to compete across multiple games and fight for victory.

To build the skill in Storyline, George frequently used fun sound effects using the audio block rather than the audio player, which is intended for longer sounds like music. They include fanfares, cheers, and drum rolls. 8 separate API requests involving Google Sheets are used which allows him to update content frequently and easily. SSML tags were also used to provide breaks in speech.

Here’s how Kid’s Hub Alexa skill looks in Storyline (pretty big):