A Video A Day: Chip’s Challenge

Episode 19: “Nerdy Chip McCallahan suddenly stops eating. Melinda the Mental Marvel is sitting down next to him!”

I don’t remember which year it was exactly when my brother, my sister and I got an Atari Lynx for Christmas (it must have been ’92 or ’93, something like that). Then a couple of years later (in ’94 or so) I got for my birthday the game Chip’s Challenge. By then then the cartridges were (if you could find them) cheap as anything. The game was perfect; it even started with the line:

Nerdy Chip McCallahan suddenly stops eating. Melinda the Mental Marvel is sitting down next to him!

Cool! Melinda the Mental Marvel! That’s me! I was only a bit disappointed when I found out you could only play as Chip (a stupid boy) and not as Melinda. The plot of the game was simple: you’re Chip and to gain membership of the exclusive Bit Buster Club, you’ve got to navigate through difficult puzzles. In total, there are 148 levels, but I have to admit, I think I didn’t even reach the 50.

I’ve just discovered a great Atari Lynx emulator for on the Mac, so I’ve been playing this game again to my heart’s content. I still have the Atari Lynx at my parent’s place, but it is slowly dying. I’ll have to open it up some time and see if I can figure out what’s up with it. I am so glad we never gave or threw it away. I also found out that one of the cartridges I got is quite rare (Lemmings :D). I am so going to hang on to this.

So here’s a clip of one of levels of Chip’s Challenge