Walker

Walker

MSCC Image(s)
CC2 Image(s)
Found in	Chip's Challenge 1 Chip's Challenge 2
MSCC Index	88 (N) 89 (W) 90 (S) 91 (E)
Steam ID	24
Multi-directional?	Yes
Moves?	Yes

The walker, sometimes known slangly as a dumbbell or a blue planet, is a monster that works similar to the pink ball, glider and fireball, but chooses a random direction to turn when it runs into something. Like the bug, the walker dies in water and on bombs, and treats fire as a wall.

MS ruleset

While Lynx and Steam walkers choose any random direction (even the one they're blocked in) and will simply idle for a tic if they chose poorly, MS walkers are much more aggressive and will only choose a random unblocked direction. In most situations, the only difference is a possible brief delay in Lynx that wouldn't exist in MS. However, in the tight corridors of Spirals, this subtle change has such massive consequences that Microsoft felt it necessary to alter the level.

There are three differences for the walker in Lynx and Steam: the walker considers all four directions, even if they aren't all legal moves (the MS walker simply doesn't add it to the random number generator), and if the walker chooses a blocked direction, it counts as the use of a move, finally is that the pseudorandom number generator used in Lynx and Steam resets at the start of each level so walkers will always take the same actions throughout a level no matter how many times its played.

Trivia

• The first Chip's Challenge level with walkers in it was Nice Day. Consequently, the route through it is not guaranteed 100%.
• In the NES port, Strange Maze is moved up to immediately following Lesson 8, making it the first level containing walkers. However, all of them are stuck in traps that cannot be opened, rendering them mostly harmless.