Well, I wouldn't really consider this game too obscure, I've seen it on a couple official Sega collections, so it still has some kind of relevance. Anyone else here ever played this game? Maybe are perhaps a fan of it? Personally I feel like a mario-esque 90s platformer game probably wouldn't have much of a present fanbase in this day and age, but hey, you never know. I was born at a time when the PS2 was brand new, so I never grew up in a 90s console war Nintendo Vs. Sega era. Despite that, my dad had a lot of games from that time, and some of my favorites to play where a select few Genesis (and Super Nintendo) games. I was definitely most into 16-bit games at the time. Despite being a massive fan of Sonic The Hedgehog (hence my username), my favorite game just has to be Kid Chameleon. I'm not sure why, maybe it's the nostalgia of playing it all the time during the spring and summer, or maybe it's just genuinely fun. I make it a thing to play this game all the way through once every year or two because of how much I really enjoy it. It may seem to be a Mario clone, but the whole multiple branching paths thing and cool mask powers is definitely neat. Another reason I ask is because I've also had an idea in my head for a long time for my own fan-made sequel or remake to the game. It'd likely be in the original 16-bit style, but I could see it being a sort of 2.5D remake, though realistically it'd be much easier for me to work with a 16-bit aesthetic. I did also consider an 8-bit Master System style "demake" which would remake the whole game and then some. I highly doubt this game will ever be touched on officially other than maybe more ports in more sega collection things, so I thought maybe it'd be fun to work on this hobby project. I've heard years ago of a team of developers working on a fanmade recreation of the game in 2.5D, but info on that is scarce (especially info in English), and I think it's long since been abandoned. Would anyone be interested in playing such a thing? I mean, there's no guarantee I'd ever get around to making a full fan-game on my own, but it's nice to think about. I've already got a bunch of ideas for new helmets, zones, mechanics, and more if anyone's interested to know.
ha, up until recently my username on most sites was literally "itskidchameleon" XD in fact my website still uses it (because I can't afford a new domain name right now) - used to love that game as a kid. would definitely be cool to see it get some fan game love
I’ve really tried to get into Kid Chameleon a bunch of times over the past… must be 20 years. First, on the Radica Plug ‘N’ Play console, then the Mega Drive Collection on PS3/PC, and more recently the Mega Drive Mini. It’s a game that I really want to love, but I just can’t. I can’t seem to find myself getting anywhere beyond one of the tank levels that leads into a tropical level. I appreciate the game and enjoy the randomness of it, as well as the concept of non-linear levels depending on how good of a player you are, but I’m clearly not a good player, and as a result I’m heavily punished.
I do think the punishing difficulty is a fundamental part of the game so I wouldn't want to do anything as dramatic as per-level saves, but a hack that lets you save/restart from say 20% complete/40% etc would be very welcome. (although with all the side levels that would be hard to define). I also like that there's a secret warp that you can only activate by getting a spectacular high score in the first few levels, forcing you to play the game in an unusual specific way to trigger it. I like secrets like that. It's kinda what I wish more modern achievements were like instead of just 'you've finished the first level! well done!'
I agree, I think it is a fundamental part of the game. This game is what Ready Player One wishes it was. Unfortunately that means it’s only accessible to the handful who can play it well!
The game is fairly well divided into four distinct 'Stages', with only a few warps taking you into another stage entirely. So those would make pretty natural save points. What I really want for this game is a randomizer, which I think qiuu did some work towards with the disassembly. It would be even more chaotic than Sonic CD's randomizer!
Am I a Kid Chameleon fan?! Shoot. For Christmas '92, I got Sonic 2 and my brother got Kid Chameleon. Despite liking Sonic 2, I really fell in love with Kid Chameleon and actually played that more! Also getting a Game Genie for Christmas that year didn't hurt either, because not being able to save may very well have worn me out on that game. The development team wanted to incorporate a save feature, but the cost of the memory to do so on top of using an 8-meg ROM size was more than Sega wished to budget for. I always thought a password system would have been an acceptable alternative. And yes, I would play a sequel. I have played several fan-made hacks of the game already. It's fun, as long as the level design is good.
I remember when the game first came out, we usually rented it from a video rental store (Along with Sonic 2) I loved aesthetic and story premise, but man that gameplay was pretty difficult. Still, pretty cool game imo.
My first exposure to Kid Chameleon was on Sega Channel! I think it's a shame they didn't include any representation for the Sega All Star series, KC in Transformed could have been really fun.
Until I finally got a Nomad in '96, I would play Genesis games at friends' houses, and one of them had Kid Chameleon. We played the hell out of it, and I know I rented it a few times after I was able to. I remember really enjoying it and loving all the different powerups, but it was definitely challenging enough that I never finished it. It'd be neat to see a remake similar to the ones Wonder Boy has received in recent years.
Now is a good time to get into modifying KC we have an easy to use level editor that uses the tiled editor and has many features. Its called Kid Chameleon Tiled Extension. https://kidchameleon.proboards.com/thread/7/kc-development-links The youtube tutorial will help you get started and shows some of the features. If you have any questions join the discord and ask questions in the kcmods channel. There is a romhack released last year that saves after every completed level its called "Kid Chameleon SRAM" located here: https://www.romhacking.net/games/1206/ qiuu did release a randomizer hack on discord a while back, that's the only way to get it afaik. stop by and search "randomizer hack" discord link https://kidchameleon.proboards.com/thread/3/kid-chameleon-discord-wiki-links I'm slowly chipping away at getting content on the forum feel free to join up if you like Kid Chameleon. There are many hacks that are only being shared through discord atm, but eventually I'd like to get them all on the forum. Also join in on the discord, we are trying to get more KC fans on there too, that's where most the KC chat happens.
I mean, I just built the randomizer branch of the disassembly, unless there's more to it that he hasn't put up on GitHub. This reminds me, I've been contemplating remaking Kid Chameleon in Retro Engine v5 now that there's a decompilation.
That new level editor is simply amazing! That's the first I've seen of it. It's so much better looking than the old stuff. I may join that forum in the future. Probably not right now, because I honestly just don't have that kind of time these days. I've always been happy just knowing there were others out there who enjoyed the game as much as I did. It's pretty cool that game got an online fan community of sorts, albeit small. I was thinking actually a week or so ago about Kid Chameleon and how we never quite figured out why three or more layers of blocks sharing the same location causes corruption (e.g., the row of hidden blocks at the top of Under Skull Mountain III which do *not* show up in-game as they were intended). I always wanted to solve that mystery, but never got very far with it. With the disassembly having been out there for several years now, maybe someone has looked into that?
That would be super awesome! Glad you like it. yeah, you can really put a level together fairly quickly once you get the basics Drop by anytime Cool mystery, I didn't know about that one. I ran it by some of the guys on discord and didn't get any hits, aside from a member pointing out what was on the wiki for USM3. It doesn't sound like anyone has investigated it in the disassembly yet to my knowledge. Here is the wiki link, it looks like you may have written the bullet point summarizing the issue way back when. https://kidchameleon.fandom.com/wiki/Under_Skull_Mountain_3 You don't happen to remember where it occurs in Crystal Crags 2?
For Crystal Crags II, it happens in the big open area of the underground path. Those ghost blocks are wrong. If memory serves me right, there are ice blocks that get overridden by additional ghost blocks, or something to that effect. Another bug is that you can't reveal a hidden block when placed directly above the player's head. I think there's a desert-themed Elsewhere level that has that issue. There are some other levels like that as well. But anyway, back to the first bug: If nobody looks into it, one of these days I might look into it myself, because it's obviously a bug, and it's bugged me (no pun intended) for years. When I worked on K-E, I had to add logic to explicitly avoid placing three blocks in a single space when converting maps back into the format used by the game. Shouldn't have to do that.
I have seen the second bug you mentioned, another interesting one. Thanks for the info on the first bug, found it. I made a few screenshot references of them just for the heck of it.
