Recently, I saw an announcement right here on dev.to about the Build Games with Amazon Q CLI challenge promoted by AWS. The idea is simple: use Amazon Q's AI to build a game, share how you did it, and if you're among the first 2,000 valid participants, you get an official Amazon Q t-shirt.

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Why I Decided to Join

I had already done some tests with Amazon Q before, so when I saw this challenge, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to turn an experiment into something more fun — and still walk away with a new t-shirt in the end. In fact, I had already participated in a previous initiative and shared my experience in this article here on dev.to.

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Using the Amazon Q Extension in VS Code

Instead of using just the terminal, I chose to use the official Amazon Q extension for Visual Studio Code, which makes the experience much smoother. With it, you can talk directly to the AI assistant inside the editor, request code snippets, tweak specific parts, and even get performance improvement suggestions for your game.

Everything was super fluid — I switched between the code and Q's chat directly in VS Code, making the process very productive.

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The Game I Built

I went for a classic arcade-style game, with a spaceship, GitHub commits as enemies, and a retro vibe. Everything was built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, generating code with support from Amazon Q directly inside Visual Studio Code.

💡 I chose this style because it's perfect for testing movement, collision, scoring, and visual effects — and it's lightweight enough to run in any browser.

Game Features:

• Player movement using arrow keys (left and right)
• Shooting with the space bar
• "Enemies" represented by GitHub commits
• Real-time scoring
• Explosions, visual effects, and shooting sound

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Final Result

The game is simple, but quite satisfying for something built almost entirely with AI support. And best of all: I learned a lot through the process without getting stuck in repetitive steps.

📺 Watch the gameplay in action:

👉 Want to try it yourself?

The game is desktop-only:
🎮 https://commits-invaders.jamesrmoro.me

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Conclusion

Building a game with AI was a surprisingly fun experience. The Amazon Q extension for VS Code made a huge difference, bringing contextual suggestions directly into the editor and speeding up development.

🎮 #AmazonQCLI #BuildGamesChallenge #AmazonQDevCLI