Monster

A monster, also commonly referred to as a creature, is a moving object that Chip must avoid at all times. As Chip is very fragile, one hit from something as harmless as a bouncing ball will kill Chip on the spot, making monsters quite a common threat in many levels. Oftentimes, a level will be specifically themed around a certain type of monster - for example, the level Fireflies is a large fire maze with eight circling fireballs for Chip to dodge.

Types of monsters

CC1

There are nine types of monsters introduced in Chip's Challenge 1, all with different properties. To learn these properties, visit the articles themselves.

CC2

Seven additional monsters were introduced in Chip's Challenge 2. Two of these are variations on existing monsters from CC1.

Furthermore, two items produce creature-like objects when dropped by the player:

Floor mimics move at 1.25 m/s, blobs, red teeth, and blue teeth move at 2.5 m/s, and all others at 5 m/s when not currently sliding. In MS, all sliding monsters move at 10 m/s ignoring slide delay and they cannot perform any voluntary moves. In Lynx and CC2, they only slide twice as fast as they walk (and their sliding speed does not change with speed boots), so blobs and rovers slide at only 5 m/s. Teeth and floor mimics, however, still slide at 10 m/s since they move at 5 m/s for one turn and then pause on the next turn(s).

Whenever any living Chip, defined as the moving Chip, any other Chip tile, or a Swimming Chip, and a monster collide, Chip dies and the level must be restarted - with the exception of Chips on the lower layer, which can only be killed by a moving block. However, given the right circumstances, monsters can be used to Chip's advantage as well, such as in releasing traps or destroying bombs.

In MS, should Chip be killed by a monster, the death message states: Ooops! Look out for creatures! Many Chipsters are known to regard this as a catchphrase.

Mechanics

MS

By accessing the monster order using a level editor, monsters can be removed from the list, which will cause them to be unable to move; however, they will still be fatal to Chip regardless of whether or not they move around. This practice will create a non-moving monster in almost all level editors, with the exception of ChipEdit, which instead "programs" monsters to not move - though this is technically still just removing the monsters from the monster list.

The monster list automatically tops out at 127 monsters; if more than 127 are created in a level editor, further monsters will not be added to the list, but the list can expand during gameplay after the level starts by cloning additional monsters.

Lynx and CC2

Monsters behave slightly differently in Lynx and CC2. Certain tile-monster interactions are different, and the monster list does not exist in the same form. Frequently, monster collisions and timing will be different between the two rulesets, which is the reason for the MS bust in Invincible Champion.

When a walker or blob randomly selects a direction that is illegal, it takes up one tick (1/4 move) in Lynx because the legality of the move is not considered before it is selected. This has no effect on the other monsters since their movements are always the same in the same surroundings.