Outbreak Protocol's Dedicated Servers 🐻: AWS GameLift with Amazon Q

When I set out to deploy dedicated servers for Outbreak Protocol, our multiplayer FPS game featuring zombie bears 🐻‍🧟, I knew I wanted to use AWS GameLift for its scalability and reliability. The process needs to be efficient and future-proof, so I leveraged Amazon Q Developer to generate the initial Terraform code to bootstrap the AWS GameLift setup. Here's how I did it and issues I experienced.

The first step is crafting a prompt to guide Amazon Q Developer in generating the Terraform file. The goal is to set up a GameLift deployment tailored for Outbreak Protocol, hosted in the Paris (Europe) region. Since our game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and uses the GameLift Plugin, the prompt needs to capture those specifics. Here’s the exact prompt I used:

Amazon Q Developer processes the prompt and generates an initial Terraform file with the details I expect. Here’s a breakdown of what the file includes.

Provider Configuration 🌍 The file configured AWS as the provider and specifies the Paris.

IAM Roles and Policies 🔒 To manage GameLift resources, it creates IAM roles with the necessary permissions.

GameLift Fleet Configuration 🚀 Configures the fleet for hosting Outbreak Protocol.

GameLift Build Resource 🛠️ The game’s server build resources.

S3 Bucket for Build Storage 📦 An S3 bucket to store build artifacts and was smart enough to set the bucket to be encrypted and private.

The generated Terraform code is a great starting point, but customization is required to align with Outbreak Protocol's unique needs. The interesting result from Amazon Q is the next steps it provided which are in line with exactly what I want to do next.

With the Terraform file customized, deploying the build I uploaded to S3 was as easy as running Terraform.