Vanilla Adventures : a CLI Game in Go

[2026-02-22 Sun 13:43]

How to Make a CLI Game in Go

Lately I've been working on a small project: building a CLI game in Go. The game revolves around a cat named Vanilla.

At first, I wasn't sure what kind of game I wanted to create. I kept going back and forth between something ambitious (like a narrative-driven experience or even a roguelike), but eventually, I settled on a simpler and more classic idea: a catcher game.

In this type of arcade-style game, objects fall from above, and the player must catch them, simple, fast, and fun.

The `tcell` Package

One of the key tools that made this project possible is the tcell package.

tcell provides a powerful, cell-based view for text terminals. It allows you to :

Draw directly in the terminal
Listen for keyboard input
Handle terminal resize events

This makes it possible to build responsive, real-time applications (like games) entirely in the terminal.

If you're curious, there's a small tutorial that demonstrates its capabilities.

The Game Loop

The core gameplay is straightforward:

Food falls from the sky
The player controls Vanilla using arrow keys or A/D
The goal is to catch as much food as possible

Each interaction triggers feedback from Vanilla, giving the game a bit of personality

That said, the game is still a work in progress:

There's no game-over condition yet
The falling speed of food doesn't change
Difficulty progression is still missing

I do plan to revisit and improve these aspects, but I wanted to share what I've built so far

Download the game

You can find the project here: lab.afaiz.dev/fzfouz/Vanilla-adventures

On Linux: run the binary directly from the bin folder
Otherwise: build and run it using make run

Recommendation

An interesting piece of the internet https://bikeshed.com/

It touches on topics like simplicity, overengineering, and how developers often get stuck on small decisions. It resonated with me while working on this project, especially when I was stuck choosing between ambitious ideas and something small and fun.

Thanks for reading!

Subscribe to get future posts via email

(Or grab the rss feed )

Add a comment

Comments (0)

learn_in_public@afaiz.dev