Spy Chameleon Review

Spy Chameleon is a simplistic stealth game with a neat colour-changing mechanic. Playing as the eponymous RGB agent (see what they did there?), Unfinished Pixel's indie game tasks you with sneaking through 75 levels, avoiding various gadgets and creatures with vision cones, cameras and other hazards looking to catch you red, green, blue or yellow handed.

At face value, Spy Chameleon looks very straightforward and uncomplicated, and for the most part it is. Designed so that each colour your lizard agent can adapt to corresponds to the Xbox One controller's green A, red B, blue X and yellow Y face buttons, you're able to hide inside patches of spilled paint, coloured rugs and changing floor tiles. And in a clever little nod to the grandaddy of stealth, there's even a Metal Gear Solid cardboard box chucked in for good measure on certain levels.

Like any good lizard worth its salt, our chameleon chum likes to munch on flies, meaning you'll have ten of them to snaffle per level. Manage that and you can return to each stage in a bid to beat the target time or collect ladybugs strategically placed in hard to reach places. Across five missions comprised of 15 levels apiece, the challenge gradually ramps up, throwing in more mechanics like fish bowls to nudge, moving barriers to tiptoe behind, or patrolling lab mice to distract with a sonic disruptor.

Eventually, you'll be dealing with a whole gamut of things looking to detect you and put an end to your attempt at hacking a computer, stealing a soft drink recipe, half-inching a valuable artwork or whatever it is that Mr. Chameleon wants to get his sticky fingers on. More complicated levels are punctuated by checkpoints, helping to alleviate frustration, although failing after a checkpoint keeps the clock running, causing a speedrun attempt to be write-off. The emphasis therefore is on flawless runs, to record the fastest time possible.

While the clock is ticking, the funky, upbeat soundtrack remains pleasing on the ears and never grates, and the always helpful ability to instantly retry a failed run at each level means you never feel like you're never left feeling hard done by in Spy Chameleon. That last bit in particular ensures that the 'just one more go' compulsion is present and correct too.

While you can pretty much breeze through Spy Chameleon at normal difficulty in about 2-3 hours, you're encouraged to replay the whole thing on hard and improve your standings on the leaderboards by clocking a faster completion time for each stage. Should you complete the game at the hard difficulty level and complete all of the additional challenges, you'll bag a bunch of achievements for your trouble too, so it's worth a second playthrough.

Spy Chameleon is a fun indie title that's certainly worth a punt. As a pure, top-down stealth and puzzle experience, it's occasionally frustrating, but always rewarding once you manage to overcome an exceptionally stiff objective. Spy Chameleon isn't hugely difficult, but provides just the right amount of challenge to keep you playing through each of its 75 levels. As lizard-based stealth games go, Spy Chameleon might be among the best around. It's most definitely far more fun than eating flies.