Surveillance
Puzzle Solving Game Using a Code Editor
Published Jan 15, 2025
Game development often feels like juggling multiple moving parts. In our puzzle game, players must solve clever challenges to escape a locked room. Every detail—like retro visuals, spooky sound effects, and smooth transitions—helps set the mood. Using Amazon Q and Amazon Polly, I was able to save a huge amount of time while still creating a polished and immersive experience.
Traditionally, crafting shaders, building cohesive atmosphere, and designing audio are time-intensive processes. With the help of Amazon Q and Amazon Polly, I was able to drastically reduce the time spent on these tasks, without sacrificing quality or creativity.
Traditionally, creating shaders is a painstaking process that requires a deep understanding of graphics programming and tools like GLSL or HLSL. For tasks like designing a CRT filter or atmospheric effects, the workflow includes:
- Defining the Shader Logic: Writing code for vertex and fragment calculations. For a CRT filter, this involves simulating scan lines, color distortion, and screen curvature using complex mathematical formulas.
- Iterating and Testing: Visual elements demand constant tweaking. A single misplaced line of code can disrupt the entire effect.
- Optimizing for Performance: Shaders need to run efficiently to maintain high frame rates, requiring profiling and optimization.
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A shader like a CRT filter could take 1–2 hours, especially for new developers with debugging and compatibility testing often doubling that time.
With Amazon Q, I described the aesthetic I wanted:
“A retro CRT filter with scan lines, slight distortion, and a moody atmospheric glow.”
Amazon Q generated a shader that perfectly matched my vision in just 30 minutes on average. It not only interpreted my needs from plain language but also delivered optimized code.
Creating atmosphere traditionally involves:
- Sound Design: Using tools like Audacity or Logic Pro to record, mix, and apply effects. For an eerie effect, this might include layering reverb, pitch shifting, and distortion.
- Lighting and Visual Effects: Manually coding parameters or using visual scripting tools to sync effects with gameplay.
- Transitions: Designing custom assets and scripting transitions, such as a TV-style fade from the loading screen to the game.
Building a cohesive atmosphere can take months at a time, with sound design alone consuming several weeks.
I described the tone and transitions I wanted for the game, and Amazon Q delivered shaders and visual effects integrated seamlessly with gameplay. This saved me weeks on atmosphere creation.
Traditional audio design involves:
- Voiceovers: Hiring voice actors or using TTS software, then editing for tone and pacing.
- Ambient Sounds: Sourcing or recording high-quality audio clips, then applying effects.
- Syncing with Gameplay: Manually syncing sounds to triggers like player actions or environment changes.
Voiceover and sound design workflows traditionally take 20–30 hours, including sourcing, recording, and editing.
With Amazon Polly, I generated eerie, robotic voiceovers tailored to the game’s tone. Polly’s customization for pitch, tone, and pacing eliminated the need for post-processing, reducing the time spent on sound design to under 2 hours, a 90% time savings.
Here’s an example script to log and analyze the time taken:
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import pandas as pd
# Dataset structure
data = {
"Task": ["CRT Filter", "Dots Animation", "Scan Lines", "Letterbox Transition"],
"Traditional_Time_hrs": [20, 15, 10, 5],
"AWS_Tools_Time_hrs": [0.67, 0.50, 0.50, 0.33],
}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
# Calculate efficiency
df["Efficiency_%"] = 100 - (df["AWS_Tools_Time_hrs"] / df["Traditional_Time_hrs"] * 100)
print(df)Developing Surveillance was made even more immersive with the use of Amazon Q and Amazon Polly and they acted as the game developer. Now, the locked room awaits—can you escape Surveillance?
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