Cameleon is kind of a co-production between Jari Komppa and Toni Lönnberg. It's usually the first thing one of them programs when they get serious about a new platform.
Originally, Jari Komppa programmed Cameleon in Pascal for DOS, some time around 1994. This DOS version made all graphics changes with palette changes. The game board size was therefore limited to 15×15 (16×16 would already have taken the whole palette). This version has sadly been lost.
Toni Lönnberg ported the game to Atari ST, and later to Java. In 1998, Jari recoded the game in C for Windows as Cameleon98. Compared to this, the ST version is simpler: It has no difficulty settings and, inevitably, less elaborate graphics. The only sound is a harrumph if you try to make an invalid move. Another notable difference is that enclosed squares are not automatically annexed.
But while it is in some ways a simpler game, it is in no way less fun. Indeed the AI is better: Cameleon would beat me at least once in three games, while Chameleon98 hardly ever beats me at all, regardless of difficulty setting. And it should not be forgotten that this is most likely the only Filler-type game for the Atari ST. While the existence of an Atari version for 7 Colors is usually claimed, it was probably only announced, but never actually released.
| Filler | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filler |  |
90 |  |
Dmitry Pashkov | ||||
| Filler for Macintosh |  |
92 | |
Lev Possajennikov | ||||
| Fillers |  |
95 |  |
Oleg Sergeyev | ||||
| Filler for Windows |  |
|
Alexander Vikulin | |||||
| Cameleon98 | |
98 | |
Jari Komppa | ||||
| Space Invader | |
99 |  |
Dmitriy Iassenev | ||||
