Maze
A maze is a common Chip's Challenge level theme which is composed of a network of interconnected pathways, many leading to dead ends, and one route leading to the exit, designed to puzzle the player. Almost all CC levels have portions composed of mazes, but this theme often fills the entire map.
Types of mazes
- Normal mazes are mazes that consist of the bare minimum - floor and walls - and usually include computer chips. Aside from the usual wall tiles, the "walls" can be other acting walls or destructive obstacles, such as seen in Strange Maze.
- Thin wall mazes are composed of thin walls, such as in Scavenger Hunt or Doublemaze. These mazes are in a separate category, as they are frequently far easier than normal mazes due to Chip's doubled field of vision. Scavenger Hunt, in particular, becomes trivially simple when the player uses Chip's vision to avoid almost every dead end in the level.
- Blue wall mazes are mazes that consist entirely or almost entirely of blue walls, some being real and some being fake, which requires a lot of guesswork. These mazes tend to be easier in Lynx because the player can select two directions at the same time, and be moved in the second direction when legal moves in the first run out (see block slapping). Examples are Mishmesh and Chipmine.
- Invisible mazes consist largely of invisible walls or hidden walls. These are not common since they require an extreme amount of guesswork, unless there is a specific pattern to the locations of the walls that is either given to the player, as in Stripes?, or can be learned quickly by minimal trial and error.
- Ice mazes are not really mazes in the traditional sense, but they require specific pathways through sections of ice. Examples are I Slide and Icedeath.
- Recessed wall mazes are mazes that consist of recessed walls and walls, so that Chip cannot turn back once he makes a decision. Examples are Cellblocked and Short Circuit.
Strategy
Many of CC1's mazes are designed to take the player on the longest route possible; the obvious route is rarely correct. A theme such as this, when discovered, tends to be useful for most of the maze; Chipmine, for example, has only one blank dead end and almost no one-square moves in the route.
Another strategy for blue wall mazes in CC1 is that rows and columns 0 and 31 are never reachable and exposed at the same time, except in Thanks to..., and usually not reachable.
A method used by many maze aficionados to solve mazes of any kind is termed the hand-on-wall method: follow the left or right wall whenever possible. The equivalents in Chip's Challenge are playing bug and playing paramecium - following the paths of a maze as a bug or paramecium would, but still thinking like Chip for all other purposes. Playing paramecium up until all the chips are collected is the simplest and quickest way to solve Strange Maze.