The UFO 50 Diaries: Camouflage

Move over Snake, there's a new reptile in town!

Ludonarrative is a term that gets bandied around a lot in games writing circles, mainly because it sounds more academic than it probably actually is. Essentially another way of saying verisimilitude, what it references are the tangible ways in which games make or break immersion for the player.

I bring this up for this week’s UFO 50 Diary entry specifically because Camouflage is perhaps the best example of ludonarrative harmony I've ever seen in a game.

It's perfect. You're a chameleon, and you navigate vast, treacherous landscapes by changing colours. The motivation makes sense. The mechanics make sense. The world, although perhaps a touch more abstract than realistic, makes sense.

Camouflage is a stealth game that lucked-out with the perfect planetary alignment of ideas meaning that any player can instinctively get on board with not only the concept, but also the central means of navigation.

It's also a mercifully short experience, I got gold in a little over an hour, beating the game the same week as Block Koala. I still have things to go back to, and it's the cherry condition that highlights an extra layer that Camouflage brings to its gameplay.

Each puzzle in the game has up to four different solutions, increasing in challenge and complexity. All require you to reach a specific tile unseen, which even alone can be tricky, with the amphibian death squads ever watching for you to trip up, and failure resulting in a surprisingly graphic demise.

But even at a glance there are more than just hungry frogs and clashing colours on the map. Each level also has two oranges and a baby chameleon, optional collectables that explicitly change your relationship with the environment, how you tackle the order in which you navigate your route to the goal and even your perambulatory behaviour.

The little fella in particular completely changes the way you move, effectively doubling your body length, meaning that your normal zig zags around terrain and the eyesight of your predators now has to factor in an additional body that moves in tandem but one step behind.

It's a brilliant addition to an already crisply designed game, one that also holds within it an emotional, parental clause (more ludonarrative goodness!). You feel compelled to seek out this more difficult version of the puzzle because you can't bear to leave a child behind.

(Incidentally whenever you get caught with baby in tow, you get eaten while they make a mad dash to the exit, leading me to wonder why they don't just do that in the first place!)

It's Camouflage’s brevity and a disappointing final puzzle that lets it down slightly. As mentioned, I completed it in an hour, and while I have bits to go back to thanks to the branching path of the world map, it's a game that really does feel like it could be expanded out into a much bigger experience.

I went into that final level expecting to be moved to a new area and another chunk of game and considering how much of a non-puzzle that section is, it's a bit of a damp squib to punctuate an otherwise brilliant experience.

Let's hope for a sequel when UFO 50-2 comes out in 2033!