Coming Soon to a Board Game Near You Alexa
2Coming Soon to a Board Game Near You Alexa.
LAS VEGAS — Your Amazon Alexa-powered speaker can tell you the weather, play your favorite tunes at your command and even place orders on your behalf. But how does it fare at board games?An Alexa-powered Echo speaker presides over a game of When In Rome. Credit: Tom's GuideWe'll find out this summer when Voice Originals rolls out When In Rome. This $25 board game taps into Alexa to test your knowledge of fun factoids about world-famous locations.
MORE: Best Alexa Skills: Games
When In Rome combines both digital and physical elements. You've got a traditional game board showcasing more than a dozen noteworthy cities, along with plastic tokens. But the questions come from Alexa as you move around the board.While Alexa serves as the host, the questions are queries from real people, all around the globe, played back through your speaker. It's a nice detail that should broaden the game's appeal by giving you multiple voices beyond just Alexa's.Questions might be a true-or-false statement on the crowded conditions of Tokyo's subway system, or have you guessing how many people out of 100 in London have advanced degrees. When In Rome will feature a couple of different difficulty levels, as Voice Originals wants this game to be one you can play with the entire family. The game is suitable for for players ages 5 and up.As anyone who's ever committed the answers to a pack of Trivial Pursuit cards can tell you, quiz games like this need to contain a lot of questions to keep players coming back. A Voice Originals rep told me during a demo at CES that When in Rome has 1,000 questions, so running out of material shouldn't be an issue with this game.If there's been a consistent theme at CES this year, it's that voice-powered assistants — whether it's Alexa or Google Assistant — could run nearly aspect of your life in the near future. At least with When In Rome, you'll be able to include them in game time too.
Credit: Tom's Guide