Japanese indie party game Meccha Chameleon launched for Steam on June 10, and has since exploded in popularity, selling over 15 million copies in less than a month and peaking at over 340k concurrent users. Multiplayer online games with this kind of scope usually end up suffering from hackers and spammers to some degree, however, it seems like Meccha Chameleon has been seeing a rise in cheating behavior in recent days. Specifically, a controversial “painting generator cheat” has been making rounds on social media, with many players criticizing it as “so desperate it’s actually lame.”
To provide some background, players have been reporting sightings of “cheaters” who use what appears to be an external program which modifies the in-game painting tool. As seen in a viral X video, the cheating tool applies a complex pattern to the player, mimicking the colors of the object behind the character. If the cheat is applied a second time, it “repaints” the image, smoothing it out and making the camouflage even more accurate.
Another recent clip showcases the same cheating technique, with someone attempting to literally generate the full painting behind them, before they eventually (and rightfully so) get discovered and “sabotaged” by their teammates.
While cheating is generally frowned upon in all multiplayer gaming communities, many Meccha Chameleon fans have called this kind of system abuse a “new low.” Considering that Meccha Chameleon doesn’t have a ranked match system, and at its core, isn’t a type of game where getting competitive is the main focus, many players are baffled to see that somebody would use cheat tools for a title which, in the first place, got super popular because it’s something fun you can casually enjoy with your friends.
Aside from the new painting cheat tool, users have also been reporting a sharp rise in ESP, teleports, aimbots and other similar hacks which unnecessarily make the game just less fun to play for everyone. Being a simple game made in only 2 months, with servers being basically hosted for free using Epic Online Services (EOS), Meccha Chameleon does not, at the time of writing, feature any kind of dedicated anti-cheat, making it not too difficult to abuse its system. But why would anyone want to do that?
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