Chip's Challenge/Levels 1-20

This is a walkthrough for the computer game Chip's Challenge, written by Chuck Sommerville and others. It shows how to complete every level (well, not yet). Note that Microsoft's version (the most well-known) differs from the original in many respects. Some of these differences are bugs which allow shortcuts to be taken. When these differences occur, the walkthrough will explain both ways.

This walkthrough frequently uses directions such as "north" and "west". The direction north means up. A notation such as N12 means to move north twelve squares. An intersection is where you have a choice of directions to take.

This page will give the walkthroughs for level 1 (LESSON 1) through level 20 (TOSSED SALAD).

Level 1:LESSON 1
Get the first chip to the left and go up. Get the chips and open the right yellow door to the bottom. From here go in a counterclockwise circle to get the rest of the chips. Your first 83 seconds!

Level 2:LESSON 2
Get the two chips to the east. Push a block vertically and then west into the water. Push the other block into the water at the same place. (Remember, after you push the first block in, step on the dirt.) Go counter-clockwise around the blocks, avoiding the bugs. Pick up the two chips as you pass them. When you get the second chip, go west and north hugging the wall. Go through the chip socket to the exit.

The only thing that will increase your speed is to follow the bugs' line going from the third chip to the fourth. Also, get the top chips first if you push the blocks up or vice versa. The best time is 90.

Level 3:LESSON 3
Get the flippers. Go into the water and get the chip and ice skates. Go onto the ice and get the chip and fire boots. Go through the fire and get the chip and suction shoes. Go onto the force floors and get the chip. Follow the path on the east side of the force floors until you find the exit. The best time is 89.

Level 4:LESSON 4
There are four exits from the starting room: the north, east, south, and west directions. You must complete the east, south, and west sections (in no particular order). Once you have completed them, you will be able to pass the chip socket on the north wall and go to the exit.

West: Go along the path. Whenever you come to a blue button, press it. When you get the chip, return the way you came, again pressing the blue buttons as you come to them.

South: The middle block has fire under it. The rest have chips under them. Push the blocks to get the chips, but be careful not to push a group of four blocks together or you may not be able to get all the chips.

To go faster, move the SE block south, the SW block west, and so on in clockwise fashion.

East: The path splits into two paths. Each of these paths splits again. At the end of each of the four paths is a chip. Get the four chips. Whenever a green wall is in your way, press the nearby toggle button.

To get faster, recognize when you need to press the green button, and press it on your way (except once when you will have to go out of your way to press it on the bottom). The best time is 116.

Level 5:LESSON 5
Go along the path to the north, and step on the green button. Go back south, head west, and take the red key. Go back and open the red door. A glider is caught in the east side of the room. Step on the trap button to the west of the glider to release it. The glider will get caught in another trap. Press the trap button to the left of that trap. The glider will run into the bomb in front of the exit, destroying it and allowing you to pass through. The best time is 84.

Level 6:LESSON 6
Go straight west through the fake blue wall. There are chips west of you, but invisible walls block you. Go north and through the rightmost blue wall. Go west three squares, and down through the blue wall. Get the chips. Return by the way you came. Go through the chip socket and to the exit.

To go quickly, memorize what you must do and don't push the fake walls that are real. The best time is 94.

Level 7:LESSON 7
Go down through the teleporter. Go past the thief and get the chip. Return and go north through the teleporter. Get the flippers and go south through the teleporter. Go west through the teleporter. Cross the pop-up wall, but do not get the fire boots. Go through the water and ride on the force floors. When you get the chip, go east. You will run into a thief and lose your flippers. Go east through the teleporter, and then west through the teleporter. Get the fire boots and go north through the teleporter. Cross the pop-up wall and the fire. Ride on the force floors and go west when you get the chip. You will lose your fire boots to the thief. Go through the teleporter. Go through the chip socket and to the exit. The best time is 139.

Level 8:LESSON 8
Go straight over four spaces and down one, and then rush to get the chip and right to the exit. This doesn't always work, but you can wait one move to make it work, or you can use odd step. The best time is 96.


 * Note: "Odd step" usually means that teeth and blobs are initialized such that you can pick up something next to them and get past them (if the route before it is followed). What happens is: Teeth and blobs are initialized such that either they move or don't move on the second move of the game (monsters don't move at all on the first). If you keep trying, you can get odd step to work.

Level 9:NUTS AND BOLTS
This is where new chipsters will start to get stumped. Get the yellow key from the room to the south, avoiding the fireballs. Get the chip and go through the yellow door, holding the arrow key down. You will cross the force floors, break through the blue wall, and enter a room with four blocks. Push the blocks into the water to get the red key. Open the red door.

From the red door, move east, south, west, north, west, south, east, north, west, south, and east. You should now have obtained the chip in the room. To leave, move east, south, west, north, west, and north.

Cross the force floor, stepping on the green button. Step on the green button again by hitting the force floor again. Go north, avoiding the fireballs, until you get the blue key. Go south to the door area. Open the blue door and get the yellow key. Toggle the walls with the green button (south of the key area) and get the green key from behind the yellow door. Toggle again, and get the red key from behind the green door. Toggle one last time, and open the red door. Slide on the ice, being careful not to collide with a fireball.

Continue west until you see another chip (not the first one). Get that chip when it is safe. Leave the bug area by the path to your west. When you come to the chip surrounded by blue walls, go through the south wall to get it. Return to the bug area.

On the south side is another passage. Staying on the gravel, go to the entrance. Now, you need to push the blocks into some bombs to open a passageway. From the gravel, move like this for the first block: S4 W2 S2 E2 S1 W1 N1 W1 S2 N1 W2 S2 E2. For the second block: N2 E4 N1 E2 S1 W5 N1 W1 S2 N1 W2 S2 E3. To get a chip: W1 N2 E6 N3 W1 N2. For the third block: S2 W1 S2 E1 S1 W4 N1 W1 S2 N1 W2 S2 E4. For the fourth and last block: W2 N3 E3 S1 E3 N3 W2 S2 E1 S1 W4 N1 W1 S2 N1 W2 S2 E5. Get the two obvious chips, and push the block to get the hidden last chip. Return to the bug area. Get the last chip and go through the chip socket on the east side. Push the block onto the button to release the fireball. Cross the trap and bolt into the exit. The best time is 306.

Level 10:BRUSHFIRE
Move like this: S4 E4 N4 E12 S3 W3 N1 W7 S7 W1 D3 E8 N1 E10 S10 E4 N2 W1 N3 E1 N2 W1 N6 E3 S18 W5 N2 W10 N7 E5.

There are no shortcuts. The best time is 51.

Level 11:TRINITY
Start off by going west over the force floor. Now, go down to the bottom, left, and go right on the force floor. Ignore the next force floor and go up. Circle around the force floor to a fireball guarding a red key at the end. Get the key and leave down. Now go left, down, and right. Get the yellow key and exit left. Then, go north, opening the yellow door and getting the skates. Go to the right and go up and to the left. You see a blue key nearby. Get the blue key and exit right. Go to the bottom right corner and up through the force field. Turn left, down, and up. You should arrive back where you started. Open the blue door and get the flippers. Get the chip beyond the water. Open the red door and get the fire boots. Get the chip beyond the fire. Go along the ice path and turn left. Get the chip and head straight east. Go through the chip socket, and continue until you reach the exit. The best time is 211.

Level 12:HUNT
Fortunately, you don't need all the chips in this level. There are two teeth at the bottom of the level, but they should not bother you. Okay, go one up and around the wall to two away from the edge of the level. Go 4U3R2D; go right until stuck. Go all the way left, all the way right but one. U-turn and go L182D and spiral left, right, left, down, and up (when you make a smooth edge below). Spiral all the way around the level, U-turn back at the left, and spiral around again. Don't get the chip in the corner. Spiral around again, then take a 2 square wide U-turn. Spiral down, up, down save one, right, left, right save one, up, down, and up save three. Go into the center, pick up the remaining chips outside in, and exit. The hunt for 270 seconds has ended!

Level 13:SOUTHPOLE
Keep going south (holding down) until you reach the exit.

Level 14:TELEBLOCK
Collect the red key and go through the teleporter. Open the top door. Push the block into the teleporter and into the water by stepping to the right of the teleporter and going in left. Push the next block in and open the next door. After the second is pushed go 90 degrees counter-clockwise and then push both blocks in, always pushing the one to get the chip second. The best time is 203.

Level 15:ELEMENTARY
Get the red and blue keys, and go through the four doors in the corners of the room. In each of the four rooms, push the block into the bomb. You will get a key behind the bomb and a tool that was hidden under the block. When you've done that, do the four doors that lead into hallways of fire, water, ice and force floor. In each of these, you need to find three chips and a key. Go the following directions at each intersection, retracing your steps at dead ends (that is, when you get a chip or key):

Northwest (force floor): east, south, north, west, north, south, south, north, east, west.

Northeast (fire): west, west, south, east, north, east, north, south, south, west, south.

Southwest (water): south, south, east, south, east, north, west, north, south, east, north.

Southeast (ice): east, south, south, east, east, west, north, south, north, west, north. When you are done with the southeast area, you should be in the lower right. Step on the spy and your ice skates will go away. (So will all the other boots, but you don't need those anymore. Or did you forget something? :-O) Now step back right and you can slide back to the center at twice the speed! This doesn't work on the force floor maze because the loss is greater than the gain here.

Open the last blue door and step on the chip socket. Push the block from the main room onto the brown button. Open the red door and go to the exit.

Speed is crucial to completing the level, let alone scoring well. The only way to get faster is to memorize these combinations. If you do so, consider yourself lucky. The best time is 89. It's elementary!

Level 16:CELLBLOCKED
Move E4, S12, E4, N4, E4, N8, E4, N8, W4, N4, W20, S4, W4, S16, E4, S8, E20, N4, E4, S4. And you're finished.

Level 17:NICE DAY
Go northwest to a group of six chips, and get them. (Be careful of the balls and walkers, of course.) Go straight east and collect another group of six chips. Go south until you reach a long squiggly line of chips. Get all the chips in this line. Now, head for the southwest. If the green toggle walls are closed, wait for them to open. Head to the corner and enter the exit.

Because of the random movements of the walkers, this level is more made of luck and alertness. If you get all the chips in this order and get through the toggle blocks without pausing, then you will get the best time possible, 83, with a smile on your face, just like the level itself.

Level 18:CASTLE MOAT
Go along the only available path until you reach the area with the blocks. Head through the block area to the northeast part of the level. There is a block in the middle of a vertical wall. Push the block two square east, then two squares up into a corner. Push the block along the north wall aside, getting the flippers underneath. Go back to the southwest part of the level and leave the block area east. Cross the water, and go to the south side of the mass of blue walls. Go through the chips sockets to the exit. The best time is 553.

The solution given above is a hidden shortcut which will only be found by careful searching. To do this level the long (and more obvious) way, you'd need to bridge the moat. This can be done with five blocks. You need to push them to the moat and along it, filling in the water at the end of the thin walls and pushing one block 2RU3R from the right of where the two bombs are. The last two push up to the north side and to the east, where the moat is only two squares wide. This route gives you a bogged-down score of 434.

Level 19:DIGGER
Follow the chips down, right, and up until you are about to cut across the path. Backtrack to the start of this path and get the chips there. Stop one before the intersection and go down. Make a U-turn when you get to the start of the chips. You may die by the teeth. Try again if that happens. Follow the chips up to the next teeth. Run left and stop one before the chips. Drop down and back right again. Run down from the new teeth and open the next teeth up. You should move at the same time as the teeth above you do; if you don't, you will die. Follow the chips left and take off the overhang above the end of the chips. Go back down and continue following until the next teeth stares you in the face. Step right over the teeth's hiding place (3 rows to the right of where it was) and run up. Turn left and up at the end of the chips. U-turn to start at the end of the chip string. Pick it up, along with the offshoot to the top. Now do not return to the normal route; instead, go 1 to the right of the carved path. You can now outwit the teeth coming right toward you. Time it perfectly, then follow the string of chips to the exit. You have dug up 171 seconds.

Level 20:TOSSED SALAD
You don't need any of the chips in this level. Even though the CHIPS LEFT counter says that you need to collect 15, there is no chip socket guarding the exit. This means that no chips are needed.

From where you start, go east a bit, north a bit, and east (crossing a chip) into a one-cell-wide passage. When you come out go south and cross the gravel. (There is a block cloner here. If you spend too much time in the first part, the block will clone, trapping you. This should not be much of a problem since you don't need to get all the chips). Enter through the teleporter.

Go along the south passage. You will have to wait for the tanks to move and the toggle walls to open up. Be careful not to run into the tanks. At the end of the passage you will get a red key. Return and when you get back to the teleporter, go along the north passage and open the red door.

As you continue along the path you will go over some force floors into a room with chips surrounded by fire. Go through the path at the southeast of the room, crossing the ice. Go down and get the fire boots, and go on the force floors. Continue south and east. You will come upon a long, thin west-east passage with a ball bouncing in it.

Wait for the ball to reach your end. Then jump in front of the ball. Go north before the ball hits you. Go and cross the force floor and fire, and head west and over the force floor for a free ride south.

Now you need to get by the tanks to the south. To do this, run through the tanks down. Continue until you have passed all the tanks. Get the yellow key and return. Now, to get by the balls to the north, wait. When the first ball passes, keep going north until you've passed. Open the yellow door and continue to the exit.

If you want to get all the chips on this level, then in the initial area you must go around and get ten of them. Also, after you get the fire boots you must double back and get the four chips surrounded by fire. The last is in the final area with the balls and tanks, but you can just pick that one up. The best time is 340.

For speed, don't get the chips not directly in your path. The path is straight-forward, except at risky points.

Level 21 and beyond
For the next 20 levels, go to Levels 21-40

For the 20 levels after that, go to Levels 41-60

For the 20 levels after that, go to Levels 61-80

For the 20 levels after that, go to Levels 81-100