Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

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This article is about computer games with this title. For the PBS game show, see Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (game show). For the theme song, see Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (song).

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? is the title of several edutainment computer games in the Carmen Sandiego series that teach geography. The World games, often marketed as the flagship products of the Carmen series, were created by Brøderbund Software from 1985 to 1996 with another version released by The Learning Company in 2001.

Contents

[edit] Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1985)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Developer(s) Brøderbund Software
Publisher(s) Brøderbund Software
Platform(s) PC (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS, Macintosh), Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, NES, SNES, TurboGrafx-CD
Release date 1985
Genre(s) Educational/strategy
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E (Everyone)

This is the earliest version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? as well as the first product in the entire Carmen Sandiego series. The game was distributed with The World Almanac and Book of Facts, published by Pharos Books.[1]

There was also a second version of this game in 1986 that did not have the almanac copy protection but disk based copy protection. Version 2.1 was released in 1990.

[edit] The chase

The goal of the game is to track Carmen's villains around the world, arrest them and ultimately arrest Carmen herself. The player begins the game by first going to the country where the crime took place and then obtaining hints from various sources on where the thief went next, leading to a chase around the world to find the thief before "time" runs out.

Each case begins with the user being alerted that a spectacular theft has been committed. Starting by first traveling to the scene of the crime, the player is given several opportunities to collect clues about the suspect's next location, which come in the form of pun-filled word play about the target place. There are thirty countries that can be visited in the game and each is identified by the name of a prominent city, though this city is not always consistent with the image of the country shown in the game. For example, Lima is given for Peru, but the game instead shows an image of Machu Picchu.

If the player travels to an incorrect location, they receive nonsensical clues and will have to backtrack to the previous location to try again. If the player travels to the correct location, a simple animation of an obvious but otherwise harmless V.I.L.E. henchman lurking across the screen is played. The gameplay continues to repeat in this manner as the player travels from location to location several times before catching up to the criminal.

The case will be lost if the user "runs out of time". Throughout the game, the time is shown as the hour accompanied by the day of the week and every action taken in the game (questioning a witness, traveling to another location, etc.) causes a few hours to progresses. At the start of the game a "deadline" is given by which point the crook must be arrested and, if that time is passed, the case is lost and the crook escapes. The times given in the game do not take changes of time zones into account.

[edit] The warrant and the arrest

The player will occasionally be given information on the suspect, which is used to obtain a warrant on them so as to narrow down the suspect to one of the V.I.L.E. members in the database. Once the player reaches the final location, the animation of the nearby V.I.L.E. henchman becomes more aggressive and implies imminent danger and any clues the player receive simply suggest that they should watch their back. Investigating further clues lead to a chase scene and the apprehending of the suspect, which is always automatically successful. However, the mission is only successful if the appropriate warrant was issued. Having an incorrect warrant or no warrant at all causes the criminal to be found innocent in court, therefore causing the whole mission to have been wasted.

Each successful mission is noted in the player's record and they will occasionally go up in rank. Before being promoted, the user had to correctly answer a geography question with the help of a reference book that was included with the program. This was included as a form of protection against disk copying. Each rank gives harder assignments with more locations to travel to before arriving at the final one. In the final case, the culprit is Carmen Sandiego herself and apprehending her lands the player in the hall of fame.

[edit] Locations

This is a list of the locations visited in the game, organized in alphabetical order by country. Note that cities are identified as they were in the game and that they are followed by the country that the city would have been located in at the time the game was produced.

[edit] Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe (1990)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe
Image:CarmenWorld2.JPG
A V.I.L.E. agent sneaks by in Sri Lanka
Developer(s) Brøderbund Software
Publisher(s) Brøderbund Software
Platform(s) PC (DOS, Windows, Macintosh)
Release date 1990
Genre(s) Educational/strategy
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E (Everyone)

The second version of this game, fully titled Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe, was released in 1990 and featured additional animation and a reworked interface. CD-ROM versions for DOS and Macintosh were released in 1992, and a Windows version was released in 1994. The Windows version was later re-released as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Classic Edition.

Each location contained three sources of clues; the user could either question a bystander, search the area or call "Crime Net"[2]. Bystanders and "Crime Net" provided a clue as to the suspect's location and, on occasion, additionally stated something about the suspect. Searching the area turned up an object that exclusively provided a clue as to suspect's location.

This game was the first version to feature dialogue spoken aloud, although most information still appeared in written form and the dialogue of bystanders was not spoken but contained in speech balloons.

[edit] Locations

Countries and locales visited in the second version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
Countries and locales visited in the second version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

Here are the locations that have been visited in this edition so far:

[edit] Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition (1995)

Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition
Developer(s) Brøderbund Software
Publisher(s) Brøderbund Software
Platform(s) PC (Windows, Macintosh)
Release date 1995
Genre(s) Educational
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E (Everyone)

Although not a version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? by name, this game is essentially a simplified version of it for pre-readers. The lead characters of the FOX animated series Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? were included in the game.

[edit] The chase

The game is played on a device called the GizmoTapper which includes DeeJay, an artificial intelligence who guides the user through the game. Each country visited consists of a stock photograph inserted in the GizmoTapper's monitor. The user moves the cursor over the monitor, where it turns into a magnifying glass and glows to indicate the user has found a clue. Presented to the user by Zack, Ivy or DeeJay, each clue is a simple icon. The user must match the icon to the icons on a map to determine where the crook went. As the game progresses, more and more icons are needed to determine the target location.

Instead of the "time limit" used in previous games, there is a "fuel limit". That is, the arrest must be made before the GizmoTapper runs out of power. Another change is that each location is identified by the name of the country rather than the name of a city within that country.

[edit] The warrant and the arrest

A simplified version of the "warrant" function is also included. At each location, a bumbling photographer attempts to take a picture of the crook, but only gets a portion of the criminal's portrait. One or two pieces of the crook's picture are captured in each destination. The user must place these pieces, which just happen to form a perfect profile shot of the culprit, together in a wanted poster located in the bottom left corner of the GizmoTapper. Failure to do this will result in the culprit escaping at the end of the case. The user is not required to answer questions in order to be promoted.

[edit] Characters and animation

Although Zack, Ivy, the Chief and Carmen Sandiego seem to have the same voice actors as in Earth, Carmen's appearance is different than in the show. Aside from including these characters and the fact that the user is addressed as "Player," the game has little to do with the Earth show.

ACME's Stretch the Crime Dog and Stretch's nemesis Carmine, Carmen Sandiego's pet cat, are introduced in this game. According to the game manual, Stretch captured so many V.I.L.E. agents as a puppy that ACME gave him "The Golden Snout Award," its highest K-9 honor. Stretch later appeared in one episode ("The Remnants") of the Earth series.

[edit] Geographic notes

Notably, this is the first post-Cold War version of the World game, meaning it is the first to feature the Russian Federation instead of the Soviet Union. However, the map of Asia used in the game inaccurately shows Sakhalin to be under the dominion of Japan. In actuality, the island is under the control of Russia and it was so at the time this game was produced.

[edit] Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1996)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Image:CarmenWorld3.JPG
A bystander provides a clue in the Philippines
Developer(s) Brøderbund Software
Publisher(s) Brøderbund Software (1996 - 1998)
The Learning Company (1998 - 2001)
Platform(s) PC (Windows, Macintosh)
Release date 1996
Genre(s) Educational/strategy/side-scrolling
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E (Everyone)

The third version of the game was released simply as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? in 1996. Released on the heels of the end of the long-running PBS game show after five seasons and 296 episodes produced, this game included QuickTime videos of Lynne Thigpen playing the Chief. This was the last version of the game to follow the "classic" formula of the series, although much of the game, especially the "warrant" portion, was heavily redesigned.

The Deluxe Edition (version 3.5) added speech welcoming the player to each country and an "ACME Global Language Link-Up" satellite which quizzed the user on the local language. [3]

[edit] The chase

Unlike in the previous games, the image of the locations took up most the screen, with the game options only taking up the bottom third of the screen. Each location had an elaborately painted backdrop that could be scrolled around a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Each location provided clues in the form of several bystanders and scraps of paper lying on the ground. The scraps of paper exclusively provided clues about the suspect's appearance.

The bystanders, on the other hand, could either be asked where the suspect went, in which case they would provide a geography clue, or what the suspect looks like, in which case they would make a casual comment about one of the suspect's physical attributes. Although speech balloons were still used on them, bystanders spoke their dialogue aloud as well. The text of notes and of bystanders' dialogue could be dragged into an "electronic notepad" in the bottom right corner of the screen for reference.

This game used a few aspects from the previous Junior Detective Edition game. For instance, this game identified locations by the name of the country, used the "fuel limit" convention instead of the "time limit" and eliminated the questions that needed to be answered before being promoted. However, the game did feature an elaborate time system that calculated the time of arrival in each country given the flight time and the number of time zones crossed. Once in a location, time passed much more quickly than in real life, so that if one were to leave the game idle for an hour, several days would be seen passing by within the game. This passage of time had no bearing on gameplay. Whenever Carmen is captured an animation shows her being sucked into a helicopter. All that remains is her red high heels as she is lifted out of them or she will try to run only to trip over her own high heels.

[edit] The warrant and the arrest

Another change is that the user is not given dossiers describing the members of V.I.L.E. and that all the clues given about the suspect are physical traits, enabling the user to identify the crook on sight. This means that the user will have to compile a full warrant rather than one of just enough traits to distinguish which crook is responsible. In the final destination, the crook is seen walking around the location with several innocent bystanders, meaning the user will have to use the warrant to identify which person is the criminal. The crook's name is only given after the arrest, in which a newspaper (The Worldly Blab) appears with a headline declaring the criminal has been captured. If the user arrested does not match the warrant, they will be found innocent and released just as they would if the warrant were inaccurate or not issued.

Eight of the 39 crooks captured over the course of the game each provided a single line of verse. These eight verses, once pieced together, created a poem that read as follows:

I'll steal the planet's treasures till there's nothing precious left.
I never wear a watch because it's always time for theft.
Loot is on my mind, though something else is on my head.
Why should I take a picture, I'll just steal the scene instead.
I always hide the things I steal regardless of their size.
And I don't wear any sunglasses to protect my eager eyes.
A special Trophy[4] will be mine, the plan is now in motion.
I adorn my neck with loot I stole from oysters in the ocean.

Upon reaching the final destination on the last case, the Chief calls in to inform the user that the culprit is Carmen Sandiego and that the poem indicates Carmen is wearing a pearl necklace. The user then finds the location inhabited by several women resembling Carmen, but that only one of them is wearing pearls. Once Carmen is captured, the Chief explains that Carmen's ultimate plan was to "steal" ACME Headquarters and that the user has therefore not only captured Carmen, but saved ACME itself. After that, the user is inducted at the ACME Detective Hall of Fame.

[edit] Characters and animation

Another added feature were the ACME Good Guides, a group of colorful characters who, if called upon, provide information about the current country and the direct surroundings. If the user calls an ACME Good Guide during a case, that guide will call back later to inform the user whether or not their warrant has any errors. One of the Good Guides also apprehends the crook at the end of each case. If the user wishes to take tours with the Good Guides and travel to countries without the inconvenience of having to track a crook, "explorer mode" is available.

The animation in the game closely imitated the look of traditional animated cartoons. The animations that alert the user that the correct destination has been reached featured either Carmine from Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition or a pair of bumbling janitors named Rick and Nick ICK according to the game manual. These animations, as well as the animations that depicted the arrest of the crooks, featured much use of cartoon physics. For example, Renee Santz (one of the Good Guides) would paint ropes onto crooks to capture them.

[edit] Countries visited

Countries visited on the third edition of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Countries visited on the third edition of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Continent Countries
North America Canada, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, United States
South America Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru
Europe Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
Asia Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam
Africa Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zaire
Oceania Australia, New Zealand

Countries highlighted in Orange have never been visited in previous versions.

[edit] Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge (2001)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge
Image:CarmenTreasure.JPG
Jules Argent and Shadow Hawkins search for clues in Florence
Developer(s) The Learning Company
Publisher(s) The Learning Company
Platform(s) PC (Windows, Macintosh)
Release date 2001
Genre(s) Educational/adventure
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E (Everyone)

Despite the title, this game seems to have little do with the previous Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? titles, even abandoning the long-standing formula of the series. Instead, the game seems to be based on the structure of the newest version of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, which The Learning Company retitled Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time.

The protagonists of the game are Carmen's former partner Jules Argent, an experienced ACME detective, and new recruit Shadow Hawkins, who is gadget-happy and rather arrogant. Jules and Shadow's personalities frequently bounce off each over the course of the game. The Chief explains that she has paired them together because she believes their personalities complement each other and indeed by the end of the game they appear to have gained some respect for each other's methods (or have at least agreed to disagree.)

At the start of the game, Carmen steals a rare Franco-Italian edition of The Travels of Marco Polo (which conveniently has the title written on the cover in English) and, as the game progresses, she goes on to steal a Māori wood carving, Incan Quipus and other seemingly random items. The goal of each of the first seven missions is to recover one item, which Carmen has hidden in a puzzle somewhere in the world. The user can only unlock this puzzle by collecting items or clues from other countries, often having to solve other puzzles first. At the end of each case, the item is found and it is announced that Carmen has stolen something else.

As the game continues, Jules and Shadow find that each object Carmen has stolen seems to be tied to a mysterious Portuguese explorer, a lost city with a great treasure and a strange "wheel" design. On the eighth and final case, Jules and Shadow track down the lost city itself. Once inside the city, however, they find Carmen sitting inside a chamber filled with priceless treasures. Carmen suggests that she may be planning to lock Jules and Shadow away in the city, but Jules insists that Carmen wouldn't do such a thing. Shadow captures Carmen by grabbing her wrist with a grapple launcher, but she inexplicably escapes through the use of a smoke bomb. Jules suggests that Carmen wanted them to find the treasure all along so that it could be put in a museum, but Shadow remains convinced that Carmen is simply a bad person. Whatever Carmen's true motivations were is left to the user's imagination.

Treasures of Knowledge plays its storyline more seriously than previous games, eliminating such series staples as pun-filled word play, gag names and humorously impossible thefts. However, humor is still included in much of Jules and Shadow's dialogue. Though V.I.L.E. agents are often mentioned, only a few anonymous henchmen appear in the game. Although the animation is also more realistic, the game liberally uses limited animation techniques. Shadow's database is the same database as the one in the 1996 version of the game and location music from the 1996 version is briefly played whenever the user arrives in a new country although it quickly fades away. Jordan, which was not included in the 1996 game, is an exception to this. In Shadow's database, Jordan replaces Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ 'CARMEN SANDIEGO'; Point of Reference
  2. ^ In later games, "Crime Net" would be written as "Crimenet"
  3. ^ Kids Domain Reviews - Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition
  4. ^ The word "Trophy" is capitalized in the game.
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