Building a game with the help of an AI assistant? That sounded both futuristic and fun — and it was! As part of the Build Games with Amazon Q CLI campaign, I created a color-matching game called Color Catch, powered by Python and PyGame, and built interactively with Amazon Q CLI.
🚀 What is Color Catch?
Color Catch is a simple but addictive game where you control a color-changing bucket to catch falling balls — but only the ones that match your current color! Miss a matching one or catch the wrong color? You lose points. Your goal is to survive as long as you can — and track your Timestreak, a score based on how long you stayed alive with a positive score.
💡 What Sparked the Idea?
The idea behind Color Catch was to create something fun, visual, and easy to play but hard to master. I also wanted to explore how well Amazon Q CLI could help me shape and build a game from scratch — and it absolutely delivered.
📸 My First Prompt to Amazon Q CLI
Here’s the very first prompt I gave to Amazon Q CLI:
🛠️ How I Installed Amazon Q CLI
I followed the official AWS guide to install Amazon Q CLI on Ubuntu:
🔗 Amazon Q CLI Installation Guide (AWS Docs)
After installing, I started a chat session right in my terminal and iteratively built the game through prompts.
💬 What I Prompted Amazon Q CLI
Here are some examples of my actual prompts:
- “Create a Pygame game with a bucket at the bottom that moves left and right, and colored balls falling from the top..”
- “Change the color of the bucket every 5 seconds.”
- “Add a scoring system based on catching/missing balls.”
- “Gradually the balls falling frequency should be increased. If the player atching a matching color ball: +2 points. Catching a non-matching color ball: -1 point. Missing a ball that matches your bucket's color: -2 points”
- “Add sounds and background music to the game.”
- “Add a pause menu and game over screen.”
- “Display a Timestreak that measures survival time.”
Amazon Q was incredibly responsive — giving useful snippets and adapting to my needs each time.
🎮 Gameplay & Rules
- You start with 10 points
- Use left/right arrow keys to move the bucket
- The bucket changes color every 5 seconds
- Balls fall from the top — only catch the ones that match your bucket's color
📊 Scoring
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| ✅ Catch matching color ball | +2 |
| ❌ Catch non-matching ball | -1 |
| ⬇️ Miss matching color ball | -2 |
The game ends when your score drops to 0.
Your final performance is measured by your Timestreak — how long you stayed alive with a score above zero.
🎁 Game Features
- 🌌 Animated starry background
- 🎮 Menus: main, pause, and game-over
- 🎧 SFX:
correct.mp3,wrong.mp3,miss.mp3,game_over.mp3, and background music - ⚡ Increasing difficulty — faster falling balls
- ⌛ “Timestreak” time-based survival score
- 💬 Encouraging appreciation messages based on how long you survived
🧪 How to Play It
🖥️ Requirements
- Python 3.6 or higher
- PyGame
⚙️ Installation
pip install pygame
python bucket_game.py
🎥 Watch the Gameplay
Want to see Color Catch in action? Here’s a short gameplay video:
▶️ Watch on YouTube
🖼️ Screenshots
Here are a few snapshots from the game:
🧺 Initial Screen
🎨 Game In Action
☄️ Game Paused Screen
⏳ Game Over Screen
📁 View the Code on GitHub
You can explore the full source code here:
👉 GitHub Repository – Color Catch
📈 What I Learned
This experience taught me:
- How to prompt effectively to guide AI
- How to use PyGame for sprite animation, audio, and logic
- That AI-assisted game development is fast, fun, and efficient
🧵 Final Thoughts
Participating in the Amazon Q CLI campaign was one of the most engaging and educational experiences I’ve had. Seeing a playable game come to life through AI-powered collaboration was both empowering and exciting.
If you're a developer (or even a beginner), I highly recommend giving it a try.
🚀 Join the Build Games with Amazon Q CLI Program!
If you’re excited to try building your own game with AI assistance and want to earn a chance to get an exclusive Amazon Q CLI T-shirt, don’t miss this opportunity!
Sign up and learn more here:
Build Games with Amazon Q CLI and Score a T-shirt
Join the community, unleash your creativity, and have fun building games with Amazon Q!
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