Chip's Challenge Level Pack 4
Chip's Challenge Level Pack 4, often abbreviated as CCLP4, is the fourth community level pack for Chip's Challenge released on July 14, 2017.
Assembly of the CCLP4 staff, as well as discussion about the project, dates back to as early as November 2012; however, the project was put on hold in favor of a more beginner friendly set - CCLP1. After CCLP1's release, it was announced by Michael Warner on November 2nd, 2014 on the newsgroup that submissions for CCLP4 were being accepted for the set, however, at the time no one showed enough interest in such a project.
After CC2's release on May 28th, 2015, there was debate on whether to make any more level packs for the original game or to move on to the first custom CC2 pack. This ultimately led to various amount of polls and concerns on where members of the community stood with the project, with results showing more favor of another CCLP and holding off on a CC2 pack until more custom levels for the game are created.
On October 31st, 2015, it was announced that the project will get underway and thus submissions were officially being accepted. Shortly after, an official staff was formed and testing began. It was also announced that CCLP4 would be another set of 149 Lynx-compatible levels like previous CCLPs and the overall difficulty would be a mix of its predecessors, but not harder than the levels seen in late CCLP3. Deadline for submissions was announced to be March 1st, 2016.
By the close off date, 3,940 levels (including 74 already in CCLP1 and 39 in CCLP3) were submitted for CCLP4 consideration. The actual number of eligible levels is currently unknown, but estimated to be somewhere around 3,000.
On May 28, 2017, the official CCLP4 logo was revealed, as well as a series of leaks on the CCLP4 site for the set's upcoming release. The CCLP4 trailer was revealed on June 21, showcasing 21 levels, one per designer.
List of CCLP4 levels
List of designers
| Name | Number of Levels |
|---|---|
| Jeffrey Bardon | 30 |
| Joshua Bone | 2 |
| Derek Bowser | 1 |
| chipster1059 | 1 |
| Cybersmack | 4 |
| Rock Généreux | 4 |
| Trevor Hedges | 1 |
| Zane Kuecks | 3 |
| Josh Lee | 37 |
| J.B. Lewis | 7 |
| Eddy Limb | 4 |
| Andrew Menzies | 21 |
| Markus O. | 5 |
| Henry Potts | 3 |
| Gigih Agung Pradipta | 1 |
| Archie Pusaka | 4 |
| Ida Roberthson | 2 |
| Eric Schmidt | 2 |
| Tyler Sontag | 15 |
| Michael Sugantino | 1 |
| Miika Toukola | 1 |
Staff
With the help of J.B. Lewis, community members Josh Lee and Jeffrey Bardon decided to take on the role of co-leaders of the staff. This would be the first time an official custom set would have two leaders as opposed to one. The staff list was announced shortly after submissions were opened on November 2nd, 2015. The list of staff members at the time of the set's release were as follows:
- Josh Lee (Staff Coordinator)
- Jeffrey Bardon (Project Manager)
- The Architect (Staff Speaker)
- Tyler Sontag (Webmaster)
- Andrew Menzies (Playtester)
- random 8 (Playtester)
- J.B. Lewis (Staff Consultant)
- David "pieguy" Stolp (Voting Administrator)
Voting
To narrow down the levels that appeared on the ballot, the staff performed a pre-voting elimination from the time submissions opened until voting officially started on July 15th, 2016. These levels were eliminated because they were too unequal between MS and Lynx, unsolvable, disqualified by the designer, already in (or too similar to levels in) CC1 or a previous CCLP, or otherwise deemed unfit by the staff to be in voting (tedious, guesswork-heavy, trivial, poorly designed, etc.). Before and during voting, community members had the privilege to nominate any level that was eliminated by the staff or did not receive at least 2 "staff recommendations" prior to voting. Any level that had 1 staff recommendation needed 2 community nominations (excluding the designer) to get a chance in voting, whereas any level that had 0 recommendations needed 3. This nomination process ended on September 15th and the nominated levels appeared in voting in the last remaining packs. By the close-off date, 115 additional levels met their nomination requirements to be included in voting, bringing the grand total of levels in voting to 1,370.
CCLP4 voting was conducted at David "pieguy" Stolp's website given his role as official Voting Administrator.
Packs of 50 random levels were used for the voting process, as was done with CCLP1. Like CCLP3, the two categories of voting "Fun" and "Difficulty" made a return to the voting process; however, the difficulty rating was completely optional, though encouraged to help determine how the set would be finalized. At the start of voting, four packs were released, and once a released pack had a total of 5 votes, a new one was released. An account on pieguy's site was necessary to vote, but all voting packs could be downloaded without an account through pieguy's site or the official CCLP4 website.
Voting ended April 30, 2017 at 11:59 EDT. A total of 25,550 votes were cast by 40 unique voters.
Voting Packs
| Pack | Release Date | Number of Levels |
|---|---|---|
| Waffle | 15th July 2016 | 50 |
| Elephant | 15th July 2016 | 50 |
| Hillside | 15th July 2016 | 50 |
| Zygote | 15th July 2016 | 50 |
| Ravioli | 17th July 2016 | 50 |
| Microwave | 17th July 2016 | 50 |
| Utility | 18th July 2016 | 50 |
| Kangaroo | 22nd July 2016 | 50 |
| Cobalt | 26th July 2016 | 50 |
| Quagmire | 30th July 2016 | 50 |
| Tornado | 6th August 2016 | 50 |
| Yodel | 7th August 2016 | 50 |
| Longbow | 7th August 2016 | 50 |
| Souvenir | 13th August 2016 | 50 |
| Fusion | 15th August 2016 | 50 |
| Xenon | 24th August 2016 | 50 |
| Bungalow | 26th August 2016 | 50 |
| Gazebo | 31st August 2016 | 50 |
| Platypus | 2nd September 2016 | 50 |
| Justice | 14th September 2016 | 50 |
| Obstacle | 16th September 2016 | 50 |
| Nightshade | 19th September 2016 | 50 |
| Voltage | 21st September 2016 | 50 |
| Dandelion | 4th October 2016 | 50 |
| Acropolis | 18th October 2016 | 50 |
| Inchworm | 23rd October 2016 | 50 |
| Pineapple | 31st October 2016 | 50 |
| Expansion | 2nd November 2016 | 20 |
| Total: | 1,370 |
Timeline of Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2015-10-31 | Level submissions opened. |
| 2015-11-02 | Staff formed and announced. |
| 2015-11-04 | CCLP4 site launched. |
| 2016-01-01 | Submission deadline set to March 1st, 2016. |
| 2016-03-01 | Submissions closed. |
| 2016-05-16 | Level submission fixes close off date set to June 16th, 2016. |
| 2016-06-16 | Level submission fixes no longer accepted. Final testing underway. |
| 2016-07-01 | Community nominations begin, date of voting announced as July 15th, 2016. |
| 2016-07-15 | Voting begins - four initial voting packs released. |
| 2016-09-15 | Community nominations end - 115 additional levels make it into voting. |
| 2016-11-02 | All 28 voting packs released. |
| 2017-01-26 | Voting deadline proposed to April 30, 2017. |
| 2017-04-30 | Voting ended at 11:59pm EDT. |
| 2017-05-28 | CCLP4 logo and first leaks revealed. |
| 2017-06-21 | CCLP4 trailer launched. Release date set to July 14, 2017. |
| 2017-07-14 | CCLP4 released at 8pm EDT. |