© 2001-2013 Mike L. This site hosted by Parcom.
About Chip's Controls
ChipPlay was a great program that enabled you to play multiple Chip's Challenge level sets without messing up your scores.
Now, that program is nowhere to be found. Chip's Controls is almost exactly the same thing, plus more. Here are its features:
- Shows a list of the level sets in the current directory which you can play. Lists .dat files as well as the newer .ccl files.
(Thanks to Michael Hansen for recommending to list .ccl files and showing me the mistake I made when trying to view both .dat and .ccl files.) Also included in the list are .ccf files.
- Creates a "chipc.exe" file (which Chip's Controls uses to play levels) in a few seconds with the press of a menu option. Just select your original CHIPS.EXE, and Chip's Controls will make a copy of it (named "chipc.exe") in your Chip's Controls folder. As of version 3.1, after you create this ChipC file, the menu option is hidden. If you need to enable or disable this menu option, press Shift-H. As of version 5.0, you can also select your "chipc.exe" file to be anywhere on your computer, not just in your Chip's Controls folder. (It doesn't even have to be named chipc.exe!) If you select a custom EXE and later decide you want to go back to the default chipc.exe, you can click in the EXE file name text box and click Backspace or Delete.
- Load up the program, select the level set you want to play, press "Play Selected File" or double-click the set you wanted to play, and it will copy the selected set to a file called "chpctrl.7" in the same folder as the EXE you are using to play the levels.
Then your EXE will automatically load, and you can play the level set you selected!
- As of version 4.3, when playing a level set with the main window of Chip's Controls, you can change the "fake" and "real" last levels (the levels that the ending sequence will appear on).
- As of version 5.0, you can also change the level set where Chip's Controls looks for folders, as well as the INI to save your scores.
- Chip's Controls also has other useful CC and Tile World tools:
- DacGen, a tool for automatically creating DAC files for Tile World
- Score Editor for modifying your INI score files
- CCX File Editor, the newest addition, which creates CCX files to distribute with your set for playing in Tile World 2
- The "Classics" — ChipEnd, EXE Creator, and CCF File Editor
Chip's Controls requires Windows 95 or higher, and requires the Visual Basic 6 runtime files and the COMDLG32 control. Most computers already have these. If you have trouble running Chip's Controls, download the Chip's Controls setup package which will install the VB runtime and the COMDLG32 control.
Here is a screenshot of this window:
How to play level sets
- Open Chip's Controls.
- Select the folder where your level sets are stored.
- Complete one of the following two steps:
- Select "I haven't created a chipc.exe yet" from the Play menu. Select your original Chips.exe file, and click OK. (Note that this option should only be used if Chip's Controls is in the same folder as your Chip's Challenge files (or at the very least, a copy of WEP4UTIL.DLL).
- If you already have another EXE file that you want to use to play the levels, click Browse on the main screen to locate this EXE file.
- Enter the fake and real last levels that you want the ending sequence to appear on.
- If you want to save scores to a file other that "chpctrl.ini", enter it in the INI text box. Otherwise, leave it blank.
- Double-click on a level set from the file list, or click Play Selected File from the Play menu.
- Play! From now on, all you need to do is open Chip's Controls and select the set you want to play.