How do I add a time delay to an Alexa Quiz SKill

Question

I am creating a Quiz based Alexa Skill. This Quiz has three levels (1,2 and 3). I would like to reduce the amount of time the user has to answer as they progress through levels.

I'm aware that I cannot extend the 8 second reply time that is fixed with Alexa Skills so here is my current attempt. At level 1, the user will have the initial 8 seconds to respond and if they do not, Alexa will re-prompt them, adding another 8 seconds. In total level 1 players have approx 16 seconds to respond. At level two I will not allow Alexa to re-prompt the user, but after the 8 seconds state that they have run out of time and tell the user their score before saving it, so level 2 plays have roughly 8 seconds. However, I'm unsure whether or not I can reduce the initial 8 seconds to 5 seconds for level 3. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.

Edit: This is all taking place within a Amazon Lambda function

Answer 1

Unfortunately, this isn't something that can be changed. The time allowed for the user to respond is fixed.

Answer 2

You don 't have control over the timeouts aside from 8 seconds + 8 seconds in the reprompt. The only workaround I can think of is measuring the roundtrip of the question/answer in the backend and reject the answers that go above the time limit you want to configure.

Answer 3

There is a workaround. You may use an audio in SSML and prompt the user to precede the answer with the awake word.

<speak>
    You have 30 seconds, when you are ready just say: Alexa, and your answer.
    <audio src="soundbank://soundlibrary/ui/gameshow/amzn_ui_sfx_gameshow_countdown_loop_32s_full_01"/> 
    Time is over. Tell me your answer.
</speak>