🚀 Building a Space Shooter Game with Amazon Q CLI and Python

Ever wondered if an AI assistant could help you build a fully playable game from scratch?
I tried exactly that with Amazon Q CLI, and what started as curiosity turned into a full-fledged Space Shooter game using Python’s pygame library.

Key Highlights:

🎯 What You’ll Learn in This Post

💡 How I used Amazon Q CLI to generate the base

📘 What I learned along the way

🎨 How I added my custom assets and enhancements

🧑‍💻 How you can build or improve it too!

🛠 Tech Stack Used

🐍 Language: Python

🎮 Library: pygame

🤖 AI Tool: Amazon Q CLI

🖼 Assets: Custom PNGs and WAVs

📁 Project Folder Structure

space-shooter/
│
├── assets/
│ ├── player_ship.png
│ ├── enemy_ship.png
│ ├── background.png
│ ├── laser_player.png
│ ├── laser_enemy.png
│ ├── background.wav
│ ├── laser.wav
│ └── explosion.wav
│
├── highscore.txt
├── space_shooter.py

🔄 Game Features Implemented (Thanks to Amazon Q)

🚀 Player ship that moves in 4 directions

🔫 Shooting mechanism using space bar

👾 Enemy waves increasing each level

🎯 Collision detection with Pygame masks

🔊 Sound effects – music, lasers & explosions

❤ Health bar and lives system

🏆 High score tracking via text file

✨ Enhancements I Made

Amazon Q gave me a great starting point, but I wanted to make it mine:

📝 High Score Save
Implemented highscore.txt logic for progress tracking.

🎨 Custom Asset Design
Designed and placed custom PNGs in the assets folder.

🔉 Improved Sound Design
Used pygame.mixer to loop background music and add sharp SFX.

⚙ Difficulty Tweaks
Balanced gameplay by tuning enemy speed and laser dynamics.

💬 Prompts I Used with Amazon Q CLI

Build a 2D space shooter game in Python using Pygame

Add enemies that shoot lasers back at the player

Implement player health and health bar

Show level number and lives remaining on the screen

Save and display high score using a text file

▶ Running the Game

1. 🔽 Clone or download the project

2. 🧰 Install dependencies:

pip install pygame

1. 🚀 Launch it:

📌 Final Thoughts

This was more than just a fun project—it’s a clear example of how AI tools like Amazon Q can empower developers in rapid prototyping and building interactive experiences.

🧠 What You Can Try Next?

🎨 Replace spaceship art with your own

💣 Add power-ups and new weapons

☁ Publish the game on itch.io

🧑‍🚀 Expand it into a multiplayer shooter

python space_shooter.py

Final Output:
Image (1)

Image (2)

🙌 Special Thanks

Big shoutout to the Amazon Q team for building a developer-friendly CLI tool that just works.
If you're curious about AI + Game Dev, this is a fantastic place to start!

🔥 Try It Yourself!

Whether you're a Python beginner or exploring AI-generated games, this is your launchpad.
Made with ❤ using Python, Pygame, and Amazon Q CLI.

🏷 #GameDev #AmazonQ #Pygame #AItools #IndieDev #PythonGame #MadeWithQ