Build Retro Games in Minutes with Amazon Q CLI
Built a Brick Breaker game in minutes using Amazon Q CLI — no coding needed. Local setup, power-ups, scoring, and more with just prompts!
Published Jun 11, 2025
Inspired by the Build Games Challenge, I wanted to take a hands-on approach to rediscover the joy of classic game development. It’s more than nostalgia — it’s a fun and practical way to learn modern tools like the Amazon Q Developer CLI. Building a retro game gives me a focused, creative playground to explore coding, problem-solving, and AI-driven development workflows.
I selected Brick Breaker as it had brought back memories of my first telephone because of the iconic Nokia 3310. Snake and Brick Breaker were two of the games that I would play for hours and hours on it. They were simple, they were addictive, and it felt really satisfying clearing off all the bricks. To restore it now with the technology of the times and AI support is like a tribute to those good olden days of gaming.
During my experience with AI, I realized that well-defined and worded questions yield the most precise results. I realized that whenever I explicitly specified the aim, organization, and setting of a task, the result was considerably more accurate. The following is the most effective prompt I have given:
It clearly defines the language, library, main mechanics, and play flow. Having it well-structured but concise allowed Q's answers to be clean and ready-to-run. I also found it beneficial that I introduced few enhancements in the game from the prompts like "Create multiple levels with increasing ball speed and more bricks", "Add sound effect for the ball collision with the brick" etc which did not modify the game flow rather enhanced my game.
| Challenge | Before Amazon Q | With Amazon Q |
|---|---|---|
| Collision Detection | Needed manual bounding-box logic; had bugs while deleting bricks while iterating | Created safe iteration using bricks[:], handled direction of bounce of ball correctly |
| Angle-Based Ball Bounce | Math needed to account for angle based upon paddle hit location | Automatically generated offset-based reflection logic with ball.centerx - paddle.centerx |
| Smoother Paddle Controls | KEYDOWN/KEYUP were used by the developers, leading to laggy or nonresponsive paddles | Used pygame.key.get_pressed() with clock.tick() for smooth input |
| Power-Ups (such as additional ball) | Difficult to make fall behavior, randomness, collision and reset | Created random drop logic, tracking through lists, and paddle collision interaction |
| Brick Level & Layout Design | Tedious mathematical treatment of the coordinates, manual or repetitive code | Automated function for placement based on grids and even multi-level transfers |
| Sound Effects | Manual loading, event hooking, and format support needed | Q added bounce and brick-hit noises with pygame.mixer.Sound() properly |
| High Score Saving | Required file I/O with error handling (JSON or Pickle) | Implemented a permanent highscore.json with load/save functions |
| Game Over Screen & Restart | Necessary game loop pause + state reset logic | Q implemented game over UI, Press R to restart functionality, and safe initialization |
| Asset Management | Missing file errors or inconsistent file paths | Automated creation of assets/ directory, generated asset-safe code |
To my surprise, the entire game took only 30 minutes to build. The minimum playable version of Brick Breaker with paddle control, ball bounce, and bricks was created by Amazon Q in one prompt. I haven't typed in any line of code, but instead spent my time thinking about what features I should add next. Amazon Q's ability to code and debug fast allowed me to loop through ideas fast and spend more time on creative enhancements rather than boilerplate logic.
Here’s what the final game looked like:
Game Start
Ball Hitting Brick
Game Over Screen
I am genuinely impressed by the Amazon Q Developer CLI — it is way more than just an autocompleter. It felt like having an AI pair programmer by my side. I was shocked at its ability to think through abstract game logic, to refactor my code on the fly, and to provide thoughtful details like restart prompts and sound effects. I don't know if you are working on a retro mini-game or a larger prototype, but for me, Q has been a massive help — with Q I can work quickly and still maintain quality.
🔗 Github Repo : https://github.com/raju7258/brick-breaker