Building Pacman Game with #AmazonQDeveloper

Building Pacman Game with Amazon Q Developer CLI

After installation and aws configure of the #AmazonQDeveloperCLI

as on the installation doc link below.

docs.aws.amazon.com/amazonq/latest/qdeveloper-ug/command-line-installing.html?.

I started with these steps below.

Step 1

Project Setup

Prompt: 

"Initialize a new Python project for a Pacman game using Pygame. Create a folder structure with src, assets, and tests directories."

Install Dependencies


Prompt: 

"Installing Pygame in the project environment."
Got the confirmation: 

import pygame; print('Pygame installed successfully')

Greeted with/and

Hello from the pygame community, pygame.org/contribute

Step 2

Basic Game Window

Prompt: 

"Write code to create a Pygame window titled 'Pacman' with a black background."

Maze Creation

Prompt: 

"Generate a 2D array representing the Pacman maze layout."
Prompt: "Draw the maze walls and paths on the screen using Pygame rectangles."

Running the game with

 

"parallels@parallels-Parallels-Virtual-Platform:~$ cd ~/Desktop/pacman-game && python3 main.py"

Pacman game is on!.

Step 3

Pacman Character

Prompt: 

"Create a Pacman sprite that can move in four directions with keyboard input."

Pacman game Newly improved!.

Ghost Implementation

Prompt: 

"Add ghost sprites with basic movement logic."
Prompt: "Implement simple AI for ghosts to chase Pacman."

Pellets and Scoring System

Prompt: 

"Place pellets throughout the maze and increase score when Pacman eats them."

Game Logic Implementation

Prompt: 

"Detect collisions between Pacman, ghosts, and pellets.

"
Prompt: 

"End the game if Pacman collides with a ghost."

Improved!

The game now includes

1, Pellets & Scoring.

2, White pellets placed throughout the maze (value 2 in maze array).

3, Score increases by 10 points when Pacman eats a pellet.

4, Score displayed in top-left corner.

Collision Detection:

5, Pellet collision: Removes pellets when Pacman touches them.

6, Ghost collision: Ends game when Pacman gets too close to any ghost (distance < 25 pixels).

Game Logic:

7, Game over state when Pacman hits a ghost.

8, Press R to restart after game over.

9, Game continues until collision occurs.

User Interface Enhancement

Prompt: 

"Display the current score and lives remaining on the screen."

Testing Implementation

Prompt: 

"Write unit tests for Pacman movement and collision detection."

Testing fixes applied:

1. Removing the problematic WAV files from the assets/sounds directory


2. Simplifying the sound generation to create a single reliable beep sound


3. Using the same beep sound for all game events (chomp, death, start)

Polish Phase

Prompt: 

"Add sound effects and improve graphics for Pacman and ghosts.


Prompt: 

"Implement a start screen and game over screen."

Polish Added: Sound Effects, Improved Graphics, Game Screens Improvements but the sound was not working.

Which brought Pacman-game to the image below...

The start Screen above and the main game screen below

Run and Debug

Prompt: 

"Run the game and debug any issues found during playtesting."

Issues identified:

Improvement fixes:

1. Adding pause functionality and fixing ghost speed


2. Adding win condition when all pellets are collected.

Debugging fixes:

1, Fixing pellet collision detection to prevent multiple sounds when standing on a pellet

Agentic AI Prompts Used:

1 "Generate Pygame code for a Pacman character that moves with arrow keys."

2 "Create a function to draw a maze from a 2D list."

3 "Implement ghost AI that follows Pacman."

4 "Write code to detect when Pacman eats a pellet and update the score."

5 "Add a game over screen when Pacman is caught by a ghost."

This demonstrates effective use of Amazon Q Developer for building classic games through incremental development and targeted AI assistance.