Microstupidity - Chip's Challenge

Chip's Challenge is a tile-based puzzle game, originally developed by Epyx in 1989 for the Atari Lynx gaming console. The lead developer, also responsible for designing a large number of the levels, was Chuck Somerville. It has been ported to various platforms, including a Windows version included in Microsoft Entertainment Pack 4 and Best Of Microsoft Entertainment Pack, which is probably the most well-known version of the game.

• Tile World: A free version of the game available for download. See my Tile World page.
• Lynx version: Try online auction sites, or look for a Lynx emulator and a ROM image file for the game.
• Microsoft version: Try online auction sites (looking for "Microsoft Entertainment Pack" and getting Pack 4 or the "Best Of" version - not the later "Puzzle Collection" which is an unrelated collection of games), or look for websites offering a download of Chip's Challenge or the Microsoft Entertainment Pack.
• Other versions: There are a variety of these, including a DOS port that is quite similar to the Lynx version. Search and see what you find.

Various programs have been created allowing the creation of custom levels, including:

• ChipEdit by John Elion
• Chip's Workshop by Christopher Elsby
• CCTools by Michael Hansen

Even though Chip's Challenge is now quite an old game, it still has a fairly active online community of players. To become involved in the community, you may wish to try the following sites:

Main Community Hubs

• Chip's Challenge Newsgroup: Considered the primary discussion board for Chip's Challenge.
• Chip's Challenge Yahoo group: Considered the main location for custom levels.

Other Chip's Challenge Sites

• Richard Field's Chip's Challenge Page: Lots of miscellaneous information about the game. This is the first Chip's Challenge website that I ever encountered.
• James Anderson's Chip's Challenge Scoreboard: Considered the main location for high scores for Chip's Challenge, CCLP2 and CCLP3.
• The Chip's Challenge Corridor: Anders Kaseorg's site, including video solutions and a user-editable FAQ.
• Mike L.'s Chips Challenge Site
• Chips Home: Andrew G.'s Chip's Challenge site.
• Chip's Challenge Wikia site: A publicly editable website about Chip's Challenge.

A sequel to Chip's Challenge has been created by Chuck Somerville, the main developer for the original Chip's Challenge. It includes many exciting new game elements, while remaining very much in the spirit of the original. Unfortunately, intellectual property ownership difficulties are preventing it from being released. Thus, for most people, there is no possibility at this time of obtaining or playing the game.

If you are a company or a wealthy individual with an interest in Chip's Challenge, you could consider contacting Chuck, attempting to establish what the precise situation is and investigating the possibility of acquiring the necessary intellectual property for a release to go ahead.

If you are one of the testers who were provided with a copy of the game, you will of course be obliged to keep it to yourself - but I would highly recommend making sure that the copy is kept in existence and suitably backed up to ensure that it is not lost in the future, even if it is locked down in a way that prevents it from being directly run or distributed at this time. After all, the ownership situation may be resolved at some point, and copyright eventually expires anyway. It would be a great shame if the game were to be completely lost to society, and if as many people as possible keep their copies of it around the chance of this is reduced.