The Chameleon is a low-poly Playstation 1 styled action-stealth simulator developed by Mexican game developer Antonio Freyre (under Merlino Games) as a sort of homage to the old stealth games that Antonio used to play as a child. In a PC Gamer interview with the man himself, he would go onto state this: "I finish a stealth game and think it's time to make something else, but then I play my favorite games and I think 'but what if…" he says. "It's a 'just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in' type thing. The other reason is that I have not been fully satisfied with the stealth games I've made. I like them and I am proud, but they can still be much better. It's a very difficult genre to nail and I love a good challenge.” With The Chameleon being his first title, he would slowly go on to learn the basics of game design through Youtube tutorials and build the game piece by piece, adding himself into the game while chasing the feeling of one of his favorite games: Metal Gear Solid. As for me, I first heard about this game from two sources: Twitter, being one as I follow a bunch of indie game developers on there (only real thing it’s good for now to be honest) and my buddy Bad Ghosts, who also bought me the game for my birthday in 2023! I had promised him I would give it a shot and I didn’t last year, so I figured I’d pop it in and give my thoughts for this year!
For Plot, Graphics and more: https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/2357708/
The gameplay for The Chameleon is at barebones a stealth game, and one inspired by Metal Gear Solid of all things. Sneaking past guards, trying to stay out of sight, and a crouching system that feels explicitly like the sneaking system from The Phantom Pain; I can at least tell you that the game itself feels good to navigate through. You can sneak around, acquire abilities to shapeshift into a guard in order to sneak past or slow down time and even do a quick dash while also punching enemies to knock them out if they’re nearby. I like this loop, but it does have a bit of a downside with the fact that your abilities are basically on a timer. See all of these abilities use up energy, with a punch using up ALL of your energy in one go, requiring you to wait for a while to get it all back up. This can be a bit agonizing but understandable I guess considering how not only is the game a stealth game, but if you were able to punch a whole bunch of people and then go through then it would disincentivize actually sneaking. For some people it’s understandable, but the truth is that punching out guards not only feels great but also permanently gets rid of a guard. On top of that, there’s no permadeath or anything if you get knocked out and no guards respawn so essentially you can get trapped in a loop of running, having a guard ride your ass, turn around and quickly punch him quickly and run away while praying you don’t run into more guards. Luckily as I said if you die then your progress is still saved and you just respawn at the nearest point but getting back to your spot can be annoying, especially considering the warehouse area can be a maze at certain points. Using the dash ability also feels kind of useless sometimes because when I use it, your character slows down a bit before running again and then the guard catches up anyways (at least when I was controller) so other than one puzzle I kind of wonder what the purpose of it really is? Later however punching isn’t even an option due to the introduction of enemies that if you attempt to punch them you will die immediately due to them being covered in electricity.
About 80-95 percent of the game through, there’s a good chance you’ll get the ability to [spoiler]go full “Lunite” mode, which allows infinite energy with I believe no chance to die though at the cost of not being able to shapeshift anymore for stealth. I know you can apparently just choose to finish the game in stealth mode, but I lament the feeling of not being able to punch out more rooms of dudes before getting to the extraction point as by then it just kinda feels like I did everything without being able to enjoy the powers for a longer period of time.[/spoiler] Basically, I wish there was more content in between; also the guards sometimes follow you TO the spawn point (at least once you get past the warehouse and before the final labs) after they knock you out which is rather frustrating if they spot you at the beginning. I guess to sum up any negative thoughts: I wish there was a bit more content to explore the powers and I wish you would lose the guards a bit better then them riding up your ass the entire time. Otherwise I actually really like how the game felt, between the Metal Gear V feeling controls to how most of the special abilities work most of the time, I feel like the game is for the most part pretty snappy and responsive. Actually getting the guards to spot you can be a mixed bag, sometimes they’ll spot you from a distance yet sometimes you’ll sneak right in front of them and they don’t seem to see you at all but I wasn’t surprisingly bothered by that much? I don’t know, I’m sure my rambling isn’t giving the game a good case, but these issues are really tame compared to the feeling of the base game and how forgiving the game actually feels mixed in with the overall aesthetic. I personally felt like the game was enjoyable and a lot of fun going through it and is a nice glimpse of mechanics that I wish could be expanded in the near future (and probably have been) by Merlino.
The Chameleon, while barebones in its deep mechanics, was a solid time in my eighty or so minutes I had played. While sometimes the A.I. felt a bit frustrating and it didn’t feel like there was enough to truly “explore” my powers in a satisfying way, I can say that The Chameleon is both a nice little demo into what could be a fleshed out “full game” and a satisfying experience on it’s own. The storytelling is small yet concise with some interesting (yet maybe predictable) twists, the gameplay pops out as something unique compared to it’s indie counterparts, the aesthetics and sound design are dripping with personality, and finally the game is just fun. If you’re looking for a small forty minute to an hour twenty minutes worth of gameplay for the really cheap price of 3.99 base price, then The Chameleon is worth your time and money due to it’s unique presence and feeling, especially for someone like me who plays a lot of smaller indie games. As for what happened after The Chameleon, he would continue to drop smaller indie titles with an emphasis on chasing his love of Metal Gear Solid. Titles like “Undetected” would later be picked up by a bigger publisher while other titles like No Sun to Worship would channel Splinter Cell, It Comes in Waves would be a minimalist open world game, Under a Star Long Cold would be a game about beating a timer and currently No Time to Surrender which seems to be a sequel to No Sun to Worship and pushed Antonio to form Merlino Games into a full studio. There’s also “Luckily, My Arm is a Shotgun” but it looks to be more of a top down “wholesome” shooter and most of these games seem to be made in a couple of months. Regardless it’s fascinating and I hope to give the next couple of games a try at some point soon, whenever that may be.
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3034999131
https://x.com/merlino_games
https://bsky.app/profile/merlinogames.bsky.social
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Antonio%20Freyre
https://www.youtube.com/@Merlino_Games/videos
https://www.merlinogames.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo7MJ1m-0RI (Soundtrack)
https://www.pcgamer.com/this-solo-developer-cant-stop-making-his-own-riffs-on-famous-stealth-games-and-his-next-looks-like-the-best-one-yet/
https://www.merlinogames.com/the-chameleon
https://www.bobbybobbybobby.com/blogs/research/antonio-freyre-on-the-art-of-stealth-game-design
