🧠 The Idea
So I was walking around AWS Summit Singapore and saw this poster:
“Build Games with Amazon Q CLI”
Score a T-shirt.
I didn’t go there planning to build a game. But I was curious what Amazon Q CLI could do. And yeah, the swag sounded fun.
So I gave myself a quick challenge:
- ⏱ Max 2 hours
- 🧠 Let Q CLI do most of the work
- 🎮 End up with something that runs
🧪 My Iteration Journey (with Prompts I gave Q)
🎮 Getting the First Build Running
“Build an endless jumper game in Python using pygame.”
Q spun up a basic prototype:
- Player block
- Green platforms
- Gravity
- Score counter
It worked! But sometimes… you just drop off the screen instantly. RIP.
⛔ Bug #1 — Sudden Death
“Fix a bug where the player sometimes falls immediately when the game starts.”
This worked.
But there was another issue: once you lost, the game window just closed. No warning, no time to react.
💀 Game Over Screen + Reset
“When the player loses, show a ‘Game Over’ screen and wait for a key press before closing. Also, add a reset feature, pressing ‘R’ should restart the game.”
Q delivered:
- Game Over screen
- Press ‘R’ to restart
Super helpful for testing. No more relaunching the app every time I mess up.
But there was something weird, the platforms were too wide. You literally couldn’t lose. You just bounced forever.
📏 Fixing the “Can’t Lose” Bug + Adding Difficulty
“Fix the bug where when you jump further up, the platform becomes too big — like make some difficulty in the game.”
With this prompt, Q made the game more challenging:
- Narrower platforms : You could finally miss a jump and fall
- Scaling difficulty : Platforms spread apart
Now we’re talking. It finally felt like a game — one you could actually lose.
⚡ Adding Power-Ups
“Add a random power-up — you decide what it is — and spawn it on some platforms. Enhance the game.”
Q gave me power-ups like:
- Double jump
- Bigger platforms
- Slow motion
Cool stuff — but a new bug appeared: timer kept ticking even after you lost.
🛥️ Fixing the Timer Bug
“Fix the timer — once the game ends or is frozen, the timer should stop.”
Clean fix. Timer now pauses properly during freezes and stops on game over. That wrapped it up nicely.
🧹 Final Touches
“Create a README.md for the project.”
Q generated a clean, well-written README file with usage instructions.
💡 Final Thoughts
This was a fun, focused experiment. In under 2 hours, I went from nothing to:
- A playable endless jumper game
- Scaling difficulty and proper fail conditions
- A working power-up system
- Reset and game-over mechanics
- A complete README
No, I haven’t claimed the T-shirt yet.
But maybe this post will help.
You can find my repository here:
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