This sounds pretty fun, and I’ll bet it’s surprisingly difficult.
Everybody House Games has come up with an idea they’re calling Hey Robot. It’s a game where you’re given a word, and then you have to try to get your digital assistant (Google, Alexa, etc) to say it in a set number of turns. There’s a full, fancy board game version available to buy, but since we’re all supposed to be in quarantine and looking for fun things to do right now, the company has released a free, basic version that you can play online with your friends and family. I wonder how well it works with screen readers, either by design or by accident.
How to Play Hey Robot Quarantine Edition
1. Grab an Amazon Alexa or Google Home*, put it near your computer and crank the volume. (Only one smart speaker is needed. Everyone else can use it through the video chat.)2. Invite your friends to a session of your favorite video chat client.
3. Start a new game and then send your friends the link to that room. (It’ll be in the upper left corner of the screen.)
4. In the VERSUS version, the teams take turns picking a card and asking the robot one question to try to get it. First team to 14 points wins.
5. In the CO-OP version, everyone is on the same team and you have 16 turns to get as many points as you can.
6. Whenever you get a word, select the card and click the SCORE button.
7. Whenever you miss a word, select the card and click the MISS button. (Missed words increase in value up to a max of +4 points.)
8. If you get a word that you’ve seen before, or need to change it for any reason, select the card and click the CHANGE button.
* We’ve found that phone-based AI doesn’t work great for this game and we don’t recommend using it.
