2016-12-17 19:31:45

My submarine hunting audio game has now been released on Google Home. Just say "Ok Google, talk to Sub War".
The gameplay is sort of Battleship, but in 3D. You get a sub, with six torpedoes, and set sail in the Action Straights, which are 10 kilometers east-west, 20 north-south, and 3 deep. There will be up to 3 AI subs, and 16 other player subs also there. You can detect other subs at long range by using your sonar, but this also alerts them to where you are. You can also locate them by just listening, but that is much shorter range. The objective is to sink as many other submarines as you can before you run out of torpedoes or get sunk by someone else. Scores are recorded and a leaderboard is maintained.
The game has been out on the Amazon Echo for a while. On that platform you can say "Alexa, enable sub war" and then "Alexa, open sub war" to play.
If you get the chance to play, let me know what you think!

21 Blackjack is our other game there, if you like card games. The response has been pretty good on Google Home so we are also looking to port Star Lanes there as well.

2016-12-17 20:09:38

How about an iOS version please?

2016-12-17 20:23:58

There's an app called "Roger" that you can use on iOS and Android to connect up to the Amazon Alexa service. You can use that to play Alexa based games, including Sub War. Some people have been using it here to play my other big game, StarLanes. But, last I heard, they were having trouble with that.

I can do a text interface. I did have an experimental chat-bot working with it for a while via Slack. The service is supposed to hook up to twitter, messenger and a few others. I could probably do a telnet interface pretty easily.

2016-12-17 22:35:47

I really think there needs to be a tutorial on Starlanes especially, I'm still really, really confused about what exactly is going on. I'm talking interactive tutorial.

2016-12-18 01:38:06

A tellnet-client would be realy realy great!

2016-12-18 05:52:47

I'll see what I can do about a telnet client. I think with the interface I'm using it should be easy.

And, I hear you about the ramp up for StarLanes. Did you take the tutorial? Just say tutorial to start it.
I was talking this week with the people who did earplay. They're local in Boston and we are looking at ways to collaborate. One idea was to do a interactive fiction piece based on StarLanes. Not so much an instructional tutorial, but a thematic introduction about the factions, the Empress, what it's all about and that. We'll have to see where it goes.

2016-12-18 10:59:56

Sounds awesome. Do you know if Google Home would work on my Android tv running Android 6? It have some voice recognition, but I don't know if it's Google home.

Best regards SLJ.
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2016-12-18 11:04:26

Will this work on Google assistant for Pixel?

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2016-12-18 15:40:55

I know this should all work for Google Assistant for Pixel. I'm less sure about Android TV. I'm pretty sure this will eventually be on all Android devices. But knowing Google, they usually do "soft rollouts". They start small and then double their user base every few weeks. So I suspect these things will come, but it make take a few months. I'd say, though, within a year, you will be able to invoke Assistant from anything Google makes.

2016-12-18 17:20:10

In addition Alexa users can play either of these Games using fire tablets if running Fire OS 5.3.2 or later, or by using the Alexa Listen's app from the Play Store, for those who aren't on/don't use Roger.

2016-12-18 18:05:55

Oh, cool, Trentin. I'll have to tcheck out that Alexa Listens app.

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2016-12-20 19:06:38

how do i get ok google to work? I have the google home app on my iPhone and a chromecast.

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2016-12-20 19:15:51

hello... I have installed alexa listen on my android, now, what should I do to play the game?

2016-12-20 21:58:25

Is their any way to play this on a PC? or no?

Audio game king

2016-12-20 22:25:02

You can try https://echosim.io/
Login with any valid Amazon ID. It's a press-to-talk emulator. So you can press and say "Enable Sub War", "Enable 21 Blackjack", "Enable Star Lanes" or any of my other games. (Or any other skill.) Then you press and say "Open Sub War", etc.
I'm not sure how well enabled it is for screen readers. Once you get pack the login screen, it's all press-to-talk with either the mouse or space bar. That's hard to get wrong. I'd like to hear back if it is useful, so I know if I can recommend it to others.

2016-12-21 17:39:50

some sort of dummy question:
do I need an amazon account to play one of these games? and also, can I play these games with roger installed on my iOS device?

going in to the wilds, collecting pokedex, and capturing them are my kind of thing,
training them, making them evolve, and generally making them stronger is my ultimate goal,
fighting other manamon tamers, winning the tournament, and fighting octoros are what these manamons like to do,
and ultimately, I become the master of mana!

2016-12-21 18:59:23

For those having issues with Alexa Listens, head on over to settings within the app, and enable "Always On," that that you can either use the "Alexa" phrase, or use a custom one of your very own.
Otherwise, if you have a phone wich lets you use the home key for assistance such as a Samsung device, you can hold down the home key and wait for the chime wich signifies that you can speak to Alexa.

2016-12-21 19:01:11

hanif, I'm pretty sure you need an Amazon account to use echosim.

2016-12-22 08:41:18

Played this a bit on my Google Home and it's an interesting concept. I wish some of the prompts were shorter or there was a way to have an expert mode. At least you can long press the GH speaker to interrupt speech. Also, how do you name your sub?

2016-12-22 15:08:36

You can say "name my ship Cincinatti" to name your sub.
Most of my games I put in sliding prompts. Ones that get shorter over time. I hadn't done this for this game yet. If you let me know what the most annoying prompts are, I can start with those!
(Let me know what you name your sub and I'll promote you to Commodore for your suggestions!)

2017-01-06 15:56:03

Hi.
I have just received my amazon echo and wanted to try out that game.
Would it be possible for you to publish the game also in the german skills store?
greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-01-07 02:01:29

I don't think I'm allowed to post in the German store unless the skill has been translated into German. Do you see other skills in the German store that are in English? I'm happy to post if there are. Otherwise I'm going to need to get my phrase file translated.

2017-01-07 02:43:31

Hi.
Umm, sadly I havent seen one till now. But if you want, I can help you with the translation, if you want to do it, I am from germany.
Greetings Moritz.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2017-01-07 18:32:52

echosim logged in , but in order to hold down the space bar using NVDA I had to use  insert f2 to pass next key through, and then I could hold spacebar on the clickable object that's not labeled, and talk. The issue I have  with echo sim is that  it would sit at processing forever... Maybe it's just the timing of when I used it