Henceforth, "the guest" -> "ccexplore"

[ccexplore]

Alright, so I finally registered. &#A0;B)

I actually did want to register as "the guest", but alas, like most online systems, any username with the keyword "guest" is not allowed, and apparently yaBB is no exception.

So I ended up using my older (but still very much active; in fact, most e-mails to me from this forum goes there) e-mail address as the username. &#A0;Feel free to e-mail to either one (ccexplore or guestlevels at yahoo) as you wish.

Anyway, this is just to let everyone know that over the next few days I'm going to wean myself away from guest postings, and that despite being a very different username, I'm still the exact same person (last I checked, anyhow). &#A0; &#A0;I'll still be using www.geocities.com/guestlevels as the place to upload stuff to.

Oh yeah, I mentioned that I will register when I have something to offer, and I'm indeed true to my words. &#A0;It isn't quite what I had in mind, but it's still something offer...for details, stay tuned on the Level Design thread.......

[Isu]

So you are ccexplore?!? =8O

Now what a surprise! This is all to much for one day!

I'd heard of people referring to ccexplore elsewhere but it never crossed my mind that the mysterious "guest" actually was him.

Honestly, I had no idea. X_X

[tumble_weed]

does "cc" mean anything?

[Shvegait]

Identity revealed. *Googles ccexplore*

[ccexplore]

LOL, actually, I'm completely unrelated to the PocketPC File Manager or whatever it is that Google revealed.  I am however the same person that Google revealed to have once been active on a board concerning an old and somewhat obscure game from the Windows Entertainment Pack, which is where the "cc" part of the username ultimately came from.

[guest]

Chip's challenge? That was a guess but it seems likely. I made a list of all the passwords, and later discovered that doing level 70 removes the passwords. X_X
Oh well...

[Shvegait]

Chip's Challenge was a fun game. I remember playing it 10 years ago... Wow, so long...  X_X Still a few levels I never passed though...

And how is "Tile World"?

[ccexplore]

Chip's Challenge was a fun game. I remember playing it 10 years ago... Wow, so long... &#A0;X_X Still a few levels I never passed though...

Yep, it was indeed Chip's Challenge.  It was a fairly fun game, although towards the higher levels it eventually becomes (in my opinion anyway) a little uncreative and frustrating, with mazes (particularly with invisible/fake walls and the like--nasty!) becoming the main feature.

And how is "Tile World"?

Funny you mentioned that.  In fact, now that I looked back, there are many parallels between this group and that group.

Roughly speaking, Tile World is to Chip's Challenge as Cheapo is to Lemmings.  Although Tile World does not use its own level format like Cheapo does, but just reuses the same level format as CC's.  And because CC is tile-based rather than pixel-based and only presents the player with a 9 tile x 9 tile view, the concept of "styles" is necessarily a bit more limited, and consequently does not seem to take hold much (well, that, and the fact that the people in that community is so score-obsessed).  There's also ChipEdit in the CC world, which needless to say is the CC's analog of LemEdit.  All that have existed already before my encounter with the CC community.

Another parallel is that in both here and there, I played a bit of a hacker role.  In CC I actually completely disassembled the game mechanics (bugs included) behind it, which undoubtedly helped some players to achieve better scores.

But ultimately, I still think Lemmings is a much more enjoyable game to me compare to CC.  B)

[guest]

Yep, it was indeed Chip's Challenge.  It was a fairly fun game, although towards the higher levels it eventually becomes (in my opinion anyway) a little uncreative and frustrating, with mazes (particularly with invisible/fake walls and the like--nasty!) becoming the main feature.

Ugh, I agree. One of the most annoying levels is the last, 149. It is just stupid to put fire under random blocks. All you have to do is try it over and over again, until you find out where all the fire is. The first half of the game is actually pretty good, then the levels get worse from there on.

[ccexplore]

Ugh, I agree. One of the most annoying levels is the last, 149. It is just stupid to put fire under random blocks.

Interesting you mentioned that.  One thing I learned from the CC community is that Microsoft's version of the game is actually loosely based on an original version of the game from the Atari Lynx (some obscure handheld that died with the Atari company back in the 80s).  It turns out that in the Lynx version, there's a bug (which the game developer decided to leave in, because it makes the arrow buttons more responsive) in the handling of block pushing, such that you can push a block sideways without having to move into the space the block occupied.

For example, say there's a block on Chip's left.  If you push "up" and "left" at the same time on the Atari version, Chip will move up and at the same time the block on the left will be pushed (it will move left).  As a result you can see what's underneath the block without moving onto it.

But of course, Microsoft's version does not have this (plus it has quite a number of its own bugs--ultimately it differs more from the Atari version than how Cheapo differs from Lemmings).  So in the Microsoft version, level 149 is downright punishing.

(Not to say that it's really any better on the Atari since it's still about hunting for the hidden exit. *yawn*)

[Mindless]

WTF? I wondered where you were...

*begins to peice mindlessness back together*

[LemSteven]

Ugh, I agree. One of the most annoying levels is the last, 149. It is just stupid to put fire under random blocks. All you have to do is try it over and over again, until you find out where all the fire is. The first half of the game is actually pretty good, then the levels get worse from there on.

I've beaten most of the levels in CC, and I'll agree it is annoying when they put fire under the blocks.  I would always freak out when I died because of this.  It's just as annoying as the hidden traps in Lemmings.  Other things that annoyed me were the levels in which the entire "puzzle" was simply avoiding bad guys (especially level 91), and the ridiculously long levels that can be easily lost near the very end (e.g. level 87).  Otherwise, CC is a very good game, and in my opinion, the second-best puzzle game out there (Second only to Lemmings, of course! )

BTW, this talk about CC seems to be out of place.  Shouldn't we be discussing it in "Other Games?"

[Shvegait]

Perhaps, but the whole reason we're talking about it is the "cc" part of "ccexplore", and this thread is pretty much about his name, so I think it's on-topic

[Proxima]

Any download links for this game? I'd love to try something that someone considers "the second-best puzzle game out there" (although it would have to impress me a lot for me to rank it above Repton 3).....

[ccexplore]

Hmm...a download may be somewhat unlikely, but I can e-mail you my copy.  Sometime this weekend.