Sky Warrior
Sky Warrior is a top-down 2D space combat game developed using Pygame in Python. The game features dynamic AI fighters, missiles, EMP attacks, and a score system that rewards strategic play. Players advance through multiple levels, each with escalating difficulty, and unlock new challenges by accumulating high scores.
Published Jan 14, 2025
Project Overview
Sky Warrior is a top-down 2D space combat game developed using Pygame in Python. The game features dynamic AI fighters, missiles, EMP attacks, and a score system that rewards strategic play. Players advance through multiple levels, each with escalating difficulty, and unlock new challenges by accumulating high scores.
Sky Warrior is a top-down 2D space combat game developed using Pygame in Python. The game features dynamic AI fighters, missiles, EMP attacks, and a score system that rewards strategic play. Players advance through multiple levels, each with escalating difficulty, and unlock new challenges by accumulating high scores.
How We Used Amazon Q Developer
- Code Generation & Refactoring:
We used Amazon Q Developer as a generative AI assistant to help generate, refactor, and optimize our game modules. This allowed us to:- Quickly build out boilerplate code for Pygame initialization, event loops, and collision checks.
- Implement level-loading and database logic with guided suggestions.
- Speed up iterative changes to our player/AI movement logic.
- Feature Brainstorming & Edge Cases:
Amazon Q Developer provided suggestions on handling rare collisions (e.g., missile vs. missile) and offered alternate code patterns for better performance (especially with sprite groups and ourParticlesystem).
Other AWS Services Used
- Amazon S3 for Asset Storage:
- We host our game images (ship sprites, background images, fighter sprites, explosions, etc.) in an Amazon S3 bucket. The game downloads these assets at runtime or during a preloading phase, making it easy to manage large files and keep local disk usage low.
Game Features & Functionality
- Adaptive AI Fighters:
- Standard Fighters that fire missiles and bullets.
- EMP Fighters that disable your ship with an EMP pulse.
- Player Abilities:
- Turbo Boost for quick sprints.
- Slow Motion to focus on precision shooting and maneuvering.
- Levels & Progression:
- Five progressively challenging levels (data loaded from
levels.json). - SQLite-based local database tracks which levels you have unlocked and your highest score.
- Particle Effects & Explosions:
- Dynamic smoke trails, spark effects, and explosive visuals.
- Screen shake on impact for added immersion.
- Score & High Score System:
- Points for destroying enemies, penalties for taking damage, and bonuses for clearing levels.
- Automatically records a new high score in the local database if you exceed your personal best.
- Minimap & HUD:
- A small radar-like minimap to track enemies and missiles.
- HUD elements show health, turbo meter, and real-time score.
Intended Purpose & Player Experience
- Target Audience: Casual and intermediate gamers who enjoy retro-style arcade shooters and appreciate strategic elements like timed slow motion and resource-limited abilities.
- Fun Factor: Blending fast-paced dogfights with strategic slow-motion segments gives players a taste of both reflexive and tactical combat.
- Replayability: Multiple levels, high score tracking, and achievements (like minimal damage runs) encourage repeated playthroughs.
This repository contains:
- Full Python/Pygame source code
- Asset preloading logic
- AWS S3 usage references for remote asset hosting
- Database schema for tracking levels & high scores
Feedback on Building with AWS
- The Amazon Q Developer suggestions significantly reduced our development cycle, especially when handling repeated code patterns or brainstorming new features.
- Hosting sprites on Amazon S3 kept our build lightweight and simplified updates to the artwork.
- Overall, using AWS services streamlined asset management and accelerated our coding process.
Thank you for reviewing Sky Warrior! It showcases how a classic arcade shooter concept can be elevated using AWS tools—both through generative AI support (Amazon Q Developer) and S3 asset hosting—to create a fast, visually engaging, and replayable space combat experience.