Boosted: A Propulsion Game

What it is

Boosted is a game where you maneuver a rocket through unique courses to get to the finish line in as little time as possible and climb the leaderboards.

Backstory

Here's the thing: I love music, art, design, and programming. One thing that encapsulates all of these is Game Development. I've always dreamed of making a video game where I create everything—music, art, animations, and, of course, code. However, it seemed extremely overwhelming, and I had no idea where to start. Over the years, this dream faded into the back of my mind, but I never truly forgot about it.

Fast forward to about two months ago, I got an email from Devpost about the AWS GameBuilder Challenge, and I immediately knew I wanted to join.

But... Where do I start?

The Beginning

I began by reading the competition's requirements and researching what I needed to build a game. The first step was choosing a game engine. I quickly discovered I had many options, with the most common being Unreal, Unity, and Godot.

I didn’t want to waste time debating which engine would be the best for me, so I went with Godot because it’s lightweight and open-source. I didn’t overthink it or do additional research.

Now came the big question: What was I going to build?

The Idea

First and foremost, I knew I didn’t want to make the next Stardew Valley or some complex RPG that looks nice but no one would play more than once. I wanted to create a game that was simple, competitive, and replayable.

While brainstorming, I remembered a game I had on my phone called Asteroids, which is a remake of a classic Atari game. Although the game was very simple, I loved the physics and found the boost system extremely satisfying. I kept that in mind.

Another game I enjoyed was Trackmania. While the graphics aren’t groundbreaking and the controls aren’t perfect, the way it implemented timekeeping and leaderboards made it highly competitive.

I decided to combine these two concepts:

A satisfying boost system inspired by Asteroids.
A well-built leaderboard system inspired by Trackmania.

This combination would create a game that’s both fun and engaging, keeping players coming back for more.

What it does

you maneuver a rocket through unique and increasingly difficult tracks, the goal is to climb the leaderboards by taking the least time to get to the finish line.

How I built it

I used the Godot game engine to build this game, which I had zero prior experience with, as this was actually my first ever game, but thanks to AmazonQ I was able to navigate my way with relative ease.

The AWS Services I Used

I started researching and asking Amazon Q about AWS services and decided to utilize with the following:

Lambda
Cognito
API Gateway
IAM
Cloud Watch
and Amplify

Game Design

First of all, I had a couple of ideas of some of the things the game had to have, based on my own video game preferences, and I was not willing to compromise on any of these points. It needed to:

Be simple: for the observer, the gameplay must look interesting and the goal at hand should be obvious, if not, there's a big chance it would deter potential players.
Have Replayability: the game needed to be replayable, it had to be something you'd want to come back to.
Be Competitive: players needed to have a way of competing with each other, this will make the game more interesting, we as humans have an innate desire to compete with each other, and most games leverage this idea.
Last but not least, there needed to be No Dying!, just good times!

Why I Chose to Design My Own Assets

The answer is simple, although I'm a bad artist, I didn't want my game to look recycled.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

As I've said earlier I'm very passionate about music, design, and programming. This being my first hackathon and also my first ever game. I'm very happy with the way things turned out.

I only have 57 minutes to submit this project as I'm typing this, although I'm extremely nervous that the time has finally come, I also can't describe how proud I am of myself, for finally deciding to put all my hobbies together and actually bring something to life!

What I learned

I honestly can't put into words how much knowledge I gained throughout the 2 months I spent building this passion project, programming, music, design, discipline, time management, you name it I am 10x better than I was 2 months ago.

What's Next for Boosted: A Propulsion Game

I want to add more maps, along with their corresponding music and finally publish it to the Play Store and AppStore. Continuously working to improve it, as this is a project I hold dear to my heart.

Final Words

As someone living in an Eastern African country (Ethiopia) where such kind of opportunities are almost non-existent, I would like to thank the AWS team for organizing this competition from the bottom of my heart. I'm genuinely grateful for being part of this.

CREDITS

Game Design, Programming, Music, SFX, and Art by yours truly - Fenet Mulugeta Legesse

But I'd like to give most of the credit to the AWS team, if it hadn't been for this competition and Amazon Q, I wouldn't have started this dream project of mine, let alone finished it in such little time.