I have to say, the very first scales I committed to learning were chromatic scales, all of them. It may seem silly, but I just felt like I needed to know how to play one note after another easily, like a piano. Once you get the C chromatic pattern, the rest will come easily, you simply start at different spots.
One of my favorite "stupid improv games" is to play over a jazz tune, and only connect chromatically throughout the entire tune. In other words, you can go up or down, in any rhythm, and repeat notes if you want to, but you have to connect with half steps, no whole steps allowed to get from one place to another. It's wacky, but kinda fun to try to make it sound coherent, and really loosens up the chromatic approaches essential to Bebop etc.
I may start a Youtube series entitled "Stupid improv games" soon, thinking about it. I have tons of them.
