Cameleon98

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 Cameleon to Atari ST. In 1998, Jari Komppa recoded the game in C for Windows in two days and entered it in the Disccover game design/code competition, where it was elected best domestic game.

The weakest point of the game is the AI. There are six different settings, most of them are pathetic. The author admits as much:

As you can see, none of the AI:s really think. They don't even know that there is another player on the board.

Building a very good AI for cameleon is much harder than one might think. Even though you have only two choises every turn, possible outcomes two turns ahead has climbed up to 50, and three turns ahead, 162, and continues to climb quite steeply.

Human can see the whole situation and plan on, for instance, conquering one corner of the game way ahead of time, without wasting time on calculating the probabilities on how good choise would that be compared to some other place. On the other hand, the computers tend to make good short-term moves, and as such may give you a challenge.

There is an option Corner Madness which causes the AI to head for the corners first and foremost. With this checked, the strongest AI (CyboMan) was able to beat me about every other time. A larger playing field seems to help the computer, too.

What is really interesting is that the author (and all the contemporary commentators) were completely unaware of the existence of Filler or 7 Colors. Cameleon98 is not a clone, it is an independent re-invention.