Buttons

A button is a utility tile connected to one or more other tiles, such as walls, monsters, traps, wiring, clone machines and more. The color of a button determines its specific function, however all buttons share the following characteristics:

• Buttons are pressed when Chip, Melinda, a block or any monster enters the same tile as a button.
• Buttons can be held down as long as the player, a block or any monster remains on the same tile. Holding down a button may have no effect depending on the color button and to what the button is connected.
• In most versions of the game, an audible noise is made when a button is pressed. One notable exception is the green button in the original Microsoft version of Chip's Challenge 1. This noise can be helpful feedback if a button is being pressed out of sight of the player.
• There is no guarantee a button is connected to something nearby. Many levels use buttons as an element of the puzzle where the player must determine its effect through trial and error. Occasionally, button presses can introduce hazards to the player and need to be avoided.

Machine Buttons

Red button

The red button, sometimes called a clone button, activates a corresponding clone machine as specified by the level designer exactly once. Holding a red button down after initially pressing it has no effect. To activate the clone machine a second time, the presser must leave and return to the tile with the button. While more than one red button may activate the same clone machine, a single red button cannot activate more than one clone machine.

If a level designer connects a red button to more than one clone machine, only the first connection is valid. To change the connection to a different clone machine in a level editor, either erase the clone machine and red button and reconnect them (in ChipEdit), or go to the "Clone Connections" menu and disconnect the tiles (in CCEdit or CCLD). In addition, ChipEdit will automatically connect a clone button to a clone machine if one is created directly after the other.

Under the pedantic Lynx ruleset and in Chip's Challenge 2, red buttons are automatically connected to the next clone machine in reading order. In Chip's Challenge 2, red buttons cannot be wired to clone machines, but pink buttons can.

Various things happen when a red button is connected to a tile that is not on top of a clone machine. To clone, the tile must be a monster or clone block, and the direction it is cloning has to be clear, or the clone will have no effect and the button must be pressed again.

If the red button is connected to a monster that is not in the monster list, the red button will add that monster to the monster list and also cause it to start moving in the specified direction, assuming that move is legal. If the move is illegal, or if the monster is already in the monster list, the red button will have no effect.

If it is connected to a clone block without a clone machine under it, it will clone only one copy of the block before the original clone block disappears and reveals anything that may be underneath the clone block, assuming once again that the direction of the clone block is legal. If it is illegal, nothing happens.

Brown button

The brown button or trap button releases the trap to which it is connected, if any, when pressed by any object. If the brown button does not have a connected trap, it has no effect when stepped on. More than one brown button can release the same trap, but more than one trap cannot be released by the same button.

Under the pedantic Lynx ruleset and in Chip's Challenge 2, brown buttons are automatically connected to the next clone machine in reading order. InChip's Challenge 2, brown buttons cannot be wired to traps, but pink buttons can.

The brown button is the only button not affected by the Button Smash Glitch in a specific case. Only currently trapped items will fail to be released when the button is "smashed".

State Toggling Buttons

Green button

The green button, informally known as a toggle button, causes all toggle walls contained in a level to switch state. If a green button is pressed by any moving object, the walls switch, but two separate presses of different buttons on the same turn will cancel each other out. Therefore, if an odd number of presses occur on the same turn, the wall will switch; if it is an even number, nothing appears to happen (the latter case is one of the only two possible ways to solve Perfect Match in CC1, the other being the Concussion Rule).

In Chip's Challenge 2, green buttons also cause green chips and green bombs to switch state in addition to toggle walls.

Green buttons do not switch toggle walls on clone machines or toggle walls that began the level on the lower layer under anything other than a monster, although they will switch toggle walls that become displaced to the lower layer.

Toggle walls are not fatal to Chip or monsters if they turn closed when Chip or monster is on them, but they will protect Chip from monster impacts and sliding blocks, and the wall rather than the monster will take effect if Chip tries to step onto the closed toggle/monster tile.

Grey button

The grey button is a button introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. It changes the state of objects in a 5 by 5 square centered at the button, even if the tiles are already wired. Tiles that can be changed include toggle walls, flame jets, force floors (direction changes), swivel doors, and train tracks. Traps, green chips, and green bombs are not affected by grey buttons.

Orange button

The orange button is a button introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. When pressed, they invert the state of a corresponding flame jet from its start state. An orange button connects to a flame jet in a diamond grow pattern, prioritizing the rightmost flame jet and then travelling in a counterclockwise fashion. Holding an orange button down beyond its initial press has no added effect.

Tank Control Buttons

Blue button

The blue button, sometimes called a tank button, reverses the direction of all moving tanks, with some exceptions, in the current level when stepped on. If there are no moving tanks remaining in the level, with one of the same exceptions, the blue button has no effect.

Tanks will not be reversed if they are standing on ice or force floors, unless Chip touched the blue button on his initial move, or landed on it after sliding over one ice, force floor, or teleport. Tanks standing on clone machines will only switch in the MS version or the most recent Tile World emulation, and only under specialized circumstances. When this happens, the Frankenstein Glitch has occurred. This glitch is seen in David Stolp's table of contents and ode to a cloned tank, pointed the wrong way.

Yellow button

The yellow button is a button introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. When pressed, every yellow tank in the level will attempt to move in the same direction as the object that pressed it. If the button is immediately surrounded by any walls such that pressing the button from a certain direction is obstructed, the yellow tanks cannot be moved in that direction with that button.

Wiring Buttons

See the article on wires for more detailed information.

Pink button

The pink button is a button introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. When stepped on by Chip, Melinda, blocks, and monsters, it will activate any wire it is connected to.

Black button

The black button is a button introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. It has the opposite behavior of a pink button: it will activate any wire it is connected to except when stepped on by Chip, Melinda, blocks, and monsters.