Chameleon

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy / Board Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

.

Review:

Chameleon is a Board game with elements of Turn-Based Strategy and some Puzzle influences as well. Players control a growing territory of tiles on a multicolored board, with every turn having them shift the color of their territory and absorb all adjacent tiles of that color into their territory, with the goal being either to control the most territory, or control specific spots on the board.

The presentation here is decent, with high-tempo music and bright colors making the game look appealing, and anime girls apparently dressed like various takes on… chameleon-themed superheroes, I guess? There’s no story at all here, and the only difference the girls make here (beyond of course adding eye candy) is that each has different bonus abilities they bring into battle, such as clearing an obstruction, placing an obstruction, or randomizing the tile colors.

As for the gameplay, it’s pretty decent and straightforward, however, there’s a few significant flaws that hold this game back. Firstly, the game lacks touchscreen controls, despite that it really would have worked well with them. However, the bigger flaw is this – the game’s strategy ultimately boils down to a rush to the center, where you’ll be better-able to block off a larger portion of the board for yourself, securing your win.

This issue could have been alleviated with larger maps, and this game would have been much-improved by a map generator. However, Chameleon is rather feature-poor, and players can’t even select the difficulty level of computer-controlled opponents, let alone tweak much in the way of the game’s settings.

Chameleon is still fun to play for a temporary distraction, and the ability to use power-ups to mess with opponents at least lend some nuance to multiplayer games, but the lack of features combined with the lack of any greater strategy makes this a game that isn’t likely to entertain for very long before you move on.

tl;dr – Chameleon is a game that is part Board Game, part Turn-Based Strategy, with players expanding their territory by absorbing adjacent tiles of a selected color. It’s a decent concept, but the game is lacking features, and much of the strategy simply boils down to getting to the center of the map before your opponent. As a result, this game is fun for a bit, but lacks any real staying power.

Grade: C

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}