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

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

A classic 2D arcade-style space shooter game built using **Python** and **Pygame**, with AI-assisted development via **Amazon Q CLI**. This project explores fundamental game development concepts including sprite management, animations, collision detection, and power-ups—perfect for developers beginning their game dev journey.

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Nawas Manakkadavan
Published May 28, 2025
Last Modified Jun 3, 2025

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

Game development has always fascinated me—not just because it's fun, but because it’s a powerful way to learn programming fundamentals. Recently, I built a classic Space Shooter arcade game using Python and Pygame, and this time, I had a new AI assistant by my side: Amazon Q CLI.
In this blog, I’ll walk through how I designed and developed the game, and how Amazon Q CLI helped me accelerate development and stay in the flow.

🎮 Game Overview

The Space Shooter game follows the classic arcade-style format:
  • 🚀 Player controls a spaceship using arrow keys or WASD
  • 🔫 Enemies spawn from the top and move downward
  • 💥 Players shoot bullets to destroy enemies
  • 💊 Power-ups provide temporary ability boosts
  • 🌌 Animated background with stars and particle effects
  • 🧠 Game state transitions (start, playing, pause, game over)
All of this was built from scratch using Python and Pygame, with no pre-existing assets!

🧰 Tech Stack

  • Python 3.10+
  • Pygame (for 2D rendering, animation, and input handling)
  • Amazon Q CLI (for AI-assisted code generation and refactoring)

📁 Project Structure

space-shooter/
│
├── assets/ # (Optional) Pre-generated images or screenshots
├── src/
│ ├── main.py # Game entry point
│ ├── player.py # Player spaceship
│ ├── enemy.py # Enemy logic
│ ├── bullet.py # Shooting mechanics
│ ├── powerup.py # Power-up effects
│ ├── starfield.py # Background stars
│ └── game.py # Game state management
├── requirements.txt
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

💡 Key Features

🌀 Game Loop

The game uses a traditional 60 FPS loop pattern:
while True:
game.handle_events()
game.update()
game.draw()
pygame.display.flip()
clock.tick(60)

🛠 Procedural Graphics

All game assets (spaceships, bullets, power-ups) are procedurally generated using pygame.draw. No need for external image files!
def create_ship_image(color, width, height):
surface = pygame.Surface((width, height), pygame.SRCALPHA)
pygame.draw.polygon(surface, color, [(width // 2, 0), (0, height), (width, height)])
return surface

⚡ Power-Up System

Power-ups boost player abilities like fire rate and add visual cues like glowing auras:
if self.power_up_active:
glow = pygame.Surface((size, size), pygame.SRCALPHA)
pygame.draw.circle(glow, (0, 0, 255, alpha), center, radius)
screen.blit(glow, (self.x - offset, self.y - offset))

💥 Collision Detection

Collisions use rectangle overlap logic for simplicity and speed:
if (player.x < powerup.x + powerup.width and
player.x + player.width > powerup.x and
player.y < powerup.y + powerup.height and
player.y + player.height > powerup.y):
player.activate_power_up()

🤖 How Amazon Q CLI Helped

I used Amazon Q CLI throughout development. Here's how it accelerated the process:
  • 🧠 Suggested object-oriented architecture for game entities
  • 🪄 Generated code stubs for classes like Player, Enemy, and PowerUp
  • 🔍 Helped debug frame drops and optimize event handling
  • 📦 Assisted in setting up a clean directory structure and requirements.txt
  • 🧼 Offered linting and refactoring suggestions to keep code clean and modular
With Q CLI’s contextual understanding, I could iterate rapidly without leaving the terminal. It felt like coding with an AI pair programmer!

📸 Sneak Peek

Amzon Q
Start
Score
Game Over
A power-up is active and the player is blasting enemies!

🔮 What's Next?

I’m planning to enhance this game with:
  • 👾 Boss battles and new enemy types
  • 🎵 Background music and sound effects
  • 🌐 Multiplayer mode via websockets
  • 📱 Mobile version using Kivy or BeeWare

📄 License

This project is open-sourced under the MIT License. Feel free to fork and build upon it.

🙏 Acknowledgments

  • 🕹️ Pygame – for making 2D game dev in Python so accessible
  • 🤖 Amazon Q CLI – for its intelligent, real-time development help
  • 💡 Open-source game dev communities – for all the tutorials and inspiration

💬 Let’s Connect

If you found this interesting or want to collaborate on game dev or cloud-native projects, feel free to:
  • ⭐ Star the GitHub repo
  • 📩 Message me via LinkedIn or AWS Community Slack
  • 💬 Drop your thoughts or suggestions in the comments

Happy Coding and Game Dev! 🎮🌌

 

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