🚀 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.

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🎮 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!

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🧰 Tech Stack

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

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📁 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

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💡 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()

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🤖 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!

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📸 Sneak Peek

A power-up is active and the player is blasting enemies!

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🔮 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

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📄 License

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

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🙏 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

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💬 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

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Happy Coding and Game Dev! 🎮🌌

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