Doppio Doppio CEO Jeferson Valadares
- Two gaming veterans have raised €1 million ($1.1 million) for Doppio, a new games studio that builds role-play games you play with your voice.
- Doppio's first game is The Vortex, a voice-controlled space adventure that can be played via Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.
- CEO Jeferson Valadares says voice games have become more economically feasible now that it's possible to buy items through Alexa skills.
- Doppio's second game will be a companion game to accompany a major TV show, Valadares said.
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The way people play games is evolving, with most of the major tech companies assuming gaming will go the way of films and Netflix and building out their own game streaming platforms.
Portuguese startup Doppio has, however, raised €1 million ($1.1 million) from Amazon's Alexa Fund, Google's Assistant Investment Program, and a handful of well-known gaming angels such as Unity founder David Helgason and Supercell game lead Lasse Seppänen to build games that don't have any visuals - and you just play with your voice.
Doppio's first game is "The Vortex," which you can play on the Amazon Alexa (by asking "Alexa, open The Vortex") or with Google Assistant on your phone.
The studio's founders, CEO Jeferson Valadares and CTO Christopher Barnes, are gaming veterans who have worked at BioWare, EA, and Playfish.
The Vortex, Valadares said, is similar to old-school text-based games, or MUDs, that were popular in the 80s and 90s. The idea is that you, the player, wake up on a derelict spaceship. You're informed that there is a "hostile alien entity" in the vicinity, you're stuck in stasis, and your only way to escape is to command the smart robots around you to do tasks. The game was scripted by author Greg Buchanan, who also worked on "No Man's Sky: Atlas Rises."
"The whole design of this first game was based on limitations," said Valadares. "For example, there's no screen. You're just speaking to the speaker, which is very unusual. I spent two weeks trying to get my head around making a game without a screen.
"But eventually we did it, and came up with this concept where you're frozen in a spaceship, you can't actually move. We had to think about how it made sense that you're just telling people to do things and [they are] not able to do anything."
Gameplay is around four hours, although most players won't be playing more than 20 or 30 minutes a day. One player, Valadares said, did complete the game in a single four-hour sitting. The team also consulted with Amazon directly to understand how people interact with Alexa, and what commands instructions might make sense inside the game.
Doppio is pretty new, and is still very much testing the idea that voice could be a viable gaming platform. Valadares wouldn't say how many players had tried out The Vortex, but said it was in the hundreds of thousands.
It's only become financially feasible, he added, because Amazon now lets people buy things through Alexa skills. "The Vortex" is free to play, but players can move faster through the game by buying equipment.
A second game is in "full swing" and due for release in the autumn. Valadares won't give details because the contract isn't fully confirmed yet, but says the new game is based on the universe of an existing TV show, and that the studio isn't wedded to just producing its own games.
Doppio plans to use its funding to make new hires, growing from the two cofounders to six staff.
Paul Bernard, the director of the Alexa Fund, said in a statement: "Gaming has emerged as one of the most exciting use cases for voice technology, and Doppio was among the first to recognize its potential. They've built a compelling game that takes advantage of the unique properties of the medium, and which customers love."