David Stolp
David Stolp, often known by his nickname pieguy, is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, player in Chip's Challenge and one of the most influential and revolutionary Chipsters that has existed. He announced his retirement from competitive play around the time CCLP1 was released, but has since returned.
Levels in official packs
CCLP3
| # | Name |
|---|---|
| 13 | Road Block |
| 81 | Possible |
| 115 | Triple Maze |
| 117 | Mice Are Good for Something |
| 123 | Investment |
| 135 | Color Wheel |
| 138 | Waterslide |
| 143 | Same Game |
| 147 | Avalanche |
CC2LP1
| # | Name |
|---|---|
| 162 | Ode to a Tank Crossing the Road |
CC scores
His score in CC1, an astounding 5,977,790, was for a time embroiled in a struggle for first place. Andrew Bennett tied him once, but J.B. Lewis, with Andrew's assistance on Blobnet play, gained 2 seconds over David. Then in 2012 after gaining four extra seconds in Lemmings, Spooks, and Amsterdam, he reclaimed the top position. In reply, J.B. Lewis came back over him and gained 1 second over David. Then David gained 5 seconds on Cake Walk to reclaim the top position. For now it seems his top spot is secure. He also has bold on most of the untimed levels.
In CCLP2, David's score of 6,051,180 is the highest total for any player. He holds +9 against anyone else on Checkerboard II, +4 on Cloner's Maze, and +5 on Key Color.
He is first place on the CCLP3 MS leaderboard with a score of 6,095,380. His exclusive records for this level set are +6 on Air Pocket, +2 on Fireball Tourism, +3 on Maginot Line, +1 on Hidden Depths, +9 on We'll Be Right Back, +47 on Grand Prix, +203 on You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks and +64 on Suspended Animation.
He is first place on the CCLP1 MS leaderboard with a score of 6,006,250. His exclusive records for this level set are +1 on Bombs Away, +42 on Funfair, +2 on Time Suspension, and +1 on Chip Plank Galleon.
As of February 2021, he has only submitted scores for two levels in CCLP4.
Community contributions
- Discovery of several glitches, such as the Twice Step Glitch, Tank Top Glitch and Frankenstein Glitch.
- Many new records, even from levels that seem to be almost impossible to improve on. A score report from David has become a heralded event in the CC community, as there are very few scores he has not yet reached.
- The adaptation of the ice block from CC2 into a patch, called pgchip.
- The technical explanation of slide delay.
- An automated score board to keep track of scores on custom level sets. He also hosts the public tws library on his site.
- Six level sets: pi, pi^2, pi-rejects, computer, minusone, and minustwo. Using levels from these sets, he compiled two others, pieguy.dat and pieguy1.dat, as submissions for CCLP3 and CCLP1. Pieguy and pieguy1 each included a single new level as well.
- Understanding, along with ccexplore, the use of data resetting in Chip's Challenge. The first introduction to such anomalies is the most insane level ever! from pi, and is still regarded as the definitive insane level.
- Staff member for CCLP3, for which nine of his levels were voted: Road Block, Possible, Triple Maze, Mice Are Good for Something, Investment, Color Wheel, Waterslide, and the notoriously more difficult Same Game and Avalanche.
Level design style
- Befitting his nickname, almost every level of his creation contains a connection to the number pi somewhere. The character is often drawn in the level, but also the digits themselves can manifest in several ways, like a required sequence of steps to complete it (as in lesson 3.141592653589793238 and organized chaos).
- Some of the more famous levels utilize advanced coding (including the most insane level ever!), glitches in Chip's Challenge which are often exclusive to one version of the game only, weird anomalies, and other crazily hard challenges. The result of this is often that specific and exact movements are required in specific directions (including the digits of pi, as described earlier) and in a specific order, even if this is not apparent or simply illogical.
- It seems apparent that David not only designed levels with a specific type of solution in mind, but also with records that were difficult to attain. A simple level such as Road Block turns out to be a study in interesting ways to gain time using nails. Many times, correct understanding and use of the glitches present in a level will gain an extra second on the clock.
- David has made several levels exploring the concept of creating a solvable level which takes ages to actually complete. The last level of pi.dat contains 13 rooms of fireballs and varying amounts of ice in them which cause the red buttons to be hit at different times, creating a very long cloning polyrhythm. This sequence will produce fruit only when all 13 glider and fireball clone machines in the southeast area activate in a rhythm where each succeeding monster knocks the next safely east in a domino pattern until the last glider detonates one bomb. On the 53rd occurrence of this cycle, the button in the corner will remove the bomb at the start, allowing Chip to exit. The total time required to beat this level, appropriately named the end of all time, is more than 314 septillion years (another pi nugget). In his following set, pi^2.dat, the almost identically named last level, end of all time, uses ice blocks for an even longer solution time.
- In addition to the two levels mentioned above (which in practical terms are unsolvable), there remain a few devilishly perplexing levels of his that have not been reportedly solved. These are the final levels of minustwo.dat, called F, G, and H, which all share the same layout but with a decreasing number of blocks to be utilized in the solution. (The final level of the set, I, is not solvable, just like the final levels of his other sets.)
- In addition to getting into the enviable habit of rarely reporting inoptimal scores on levels, from the start of his level making career, David had an aversion to updating any of his released levels. This can be seen from never having updated the first releases of his major sets even though some levels contain minor mistakes. For example, the tank area in Color Wheel from #35 of pi.dat was not quite as he intended it to be, but instead of updating the set, he included the intended version as a new level in pi^2, which was then later updated to the version now found in CCLP3.