Melinda

Melinda, often known in full as Melinda the Mental Marvel, is the in-game creator of the Chip's Challenge clubhouse, and the president of the Bit Busters Club which Chip aspires to gain access to.

Back story

The story of how Chip's Challenge occurred differs in MS, and in Lynx. In MS, Chip was obsessed with the Bit Busters Club, willing to do anything to join, and Melinda would eventually accede - provided that Chip could pass her Challenge. In Lynx, the main goal of the game is instead to convince Melinda to come to the "E-Prom" (a pun on EPROM) with him, after Chip saw Melinda for the first time and fell in love at first sight. Melinda agreed to go with Chip if he passes her Challenge. He also became a member of the Bit Busters Club at the end of the challenge.

Personality

As she is a mental marvel, Melinda keeps track of the player's scores through the entire game, congratulating Chip on important milestones (see the Decade messages) and delivering encouraging special dispatches along the way. As Melinda is a rewarding type of person, she will allow Chip to skip a level if he is killed or restart the level 10 times after walking (or sliding) over 32 tiles.

When this happens, a window will pop up reading the following: "You seem to be having trouble with this level. Would you like to skip to the next level?" Clicking Yes will unlock the next level, and can be used as one way to unlock secret levels.

The monsters in Chip's Challenge were mostly created by Melinda as a fun and challenging way to pass time. Six of them are abandoned experiments that managed to get into the clubhouse, the blob and paramecium were created by accident in a period of genetic engineering, and the bugs came from a collection she brought back from Africa which got loose and began to multiply.

Melinda in scoring

Melinda is also referred to in scoring purposes as the always-present leader of the CC high score list. Jimmy Vermeer's high score tables count Melinda's score as zeroth place on the overall scores list.

This score is the Melinda score, which is the bold time on every level plus any Melinda times: potential improvements which are possible, but have not yet been scored. These are counted as zeroth place on individual levels' score lists.

Chip's Challenge 2

Melinda becomes a playable character in Chip's Challenge 2. Levels may start with her as the player character, or she may be switched into with the help of a Transmogrifier.

Melinda works for the most part as Chip would, with a couple of exceptions: she can always walk on ice as if she had ice skates, but cannot enter dirt or gravel tiles without hiking boots. Also, she can unlock yellow doors without losing a key, but loses green keys when unlocking green doors.

Red Teeth avoid Melinda, but Blue Teeth chase her. Mirror Melindas do not copy Chip's moves, and Mirror Chips do not copy Melinda's moves.