There are games to which, looking at them in perspective, I did not devote all the attention that I should. Among the many games that I had for the Atari Lynx was the mythical Chip’s Challenge, but I only dedicated a couple of games to it, preferring other games from that Lynx, such as Gates of Zendocon or Todd’s Adventures in Slime World .
It is not a laptop that I keep today and the truth is that I do not regret it either: first, because it had few exclusives that were worthwhile; second, because Evercade is rescuing some of its games; and third, because Chuck Sommerville himself, creator of Chip’s Challenge , gave this classic away on Steam a few months ago. And it’s still free, too, to commemorate its 30th anniversary. Therefore, we believe that it is a good time to review it.
Extreme minimalism for a great puzzle game
This was the look of the original Chip’s Challenge for Atari Lynx in 1989.
The fact that Chip’s Challenge did not win me over when I first played it on Atari Lynx was mainly due to an unattractive aesthetic for the user. Its phases had an extremely minimalist design, based on squares. There were different shades for the ground, from the basics to differentiate between what could be stepped on without dying or the blue color of the water, which drowned us, to other types of surfaces, such as dirt, which blocked access to any enemy.
The name of the game also gave us a clue to our objective: yes, the chip challenge. Because to complete a phase, except for honorable exceptions, you had to gather all the chips (or a certain number of them, depending on the level) that were on the screen to unlock the motherboard that gave us access to the portal.
Its protagonist, called Nerdy Chip McCallahan (Chip for friends), had two simple movements: move horizontally or vertically, and move a series of objects. Now, he could unlock some specific skill for a level, such as obtaining spiked boots to avoid slipping on the ice. Or also fire retardant boots to avoid burning yourself and boots with which you do not sink into the water …
Chuck Sommerville surprised at the time due to the obscene number of levels with which it was released in Atari Lynx, with a total of 149 phases . But above all because of the incredible variety of challenges that were in all of them, by not following a single pattern. In fact, there were phases in which you did not have to collect chips, but to go through a convoluted maze fighting against the clock, or to watch the steps to the maximum between so much cheating with (or without) time limit. A constant challenge .
Chip’s Challenge, a very serious puzzle
And this is what its version for Steam looks like, which you can download for free today.
His appearance was also deceptive. The first ten steps were a simple scoring what was to come, since the difficulty was in crescendo by leaps and bounds and any error paid dearly having to restart the level. Losing a life and Chip himself saying “bummer” to show his disappointment was the least of it. The worst thing was realizing that you had placed a stone wrong.
Not being able to grab objects, but only push them, you had to be very careful with these types of stones, because they not only served to draw improvised bridges over the water, but also to cause explosions in bombs. It was a game where you had to plan everything to the limit , but also with a certain component of trial and error with its traps, with some quite bloody.
Yes, Chuck Sommerville also played with our patience and photographic memory with rocks that hid fire underneath (instant death) or invisible walls, among other niceties. And if we add to this that many phases had a time limit and many objectives to meet (the chips, of course, used to be quite scattered to do a lot of laps), we had the party set up.
Sometimes we could decide the order, but the way to solve each puzzle had only one solution. And to make matters worse, there were certain enemies that were chasing us, being the mouths with teeth (so Joker) the most representative of Chip’s Challenge . Curiously, the saga had to wait ten years to have a sequel, seeing its latest installment thanks to KickStarter, where it received the name Chuck’s Challenge 3D and whose price on Steam is only 8.19 euros.
Has it stood the test of time well?
Yes , ignoring the minimalism (somewhat ugly) of its graphic section. It was an amazing project on the part of Chuck Sommerville who knew how to take advantage of the useful life of Atari Lynx to the maximum , to the point of becoming one of the icons of that ill-fated laptop. Today it will not seem as ambitious or spectacular as The Witness, but without a doubt Chip’s Challenge was one of the video games that served to establish the great genre of puzzles, so fashionable today.
Chip’s Challenge
| Platforms | Atari Lynx, MS-DOS, Amiga 500, Commodore 64, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Steam |
|---|---|
| Multiplayer | Not |
| Developer | Epyx |
| Company | Atari |
| Launch | 1989 |
| Price | FREE (Steam) |
The best
- The exaggerated number of phases available
- Wide variety of challenges on each level
- Get the original free on Steam now
Worst
- Graphically it still seems very ugly
- Not the slightest mistake was overlooked
