The player works one case at a time, beginning a game by first traveling to the country where a robbery has occurred and receiving hints about the thief’s next destination.

Players, working their way up the ranks as agents of the ACME Detective Agency, hunted down crooks employed by V.I.L.E., an international group of thieves led by the mysterious Carmen Sandiego, who have stolen famous creations from around the globe. Artists Lauren Elliott and Gene Portwood teamed up with Bigham, along with scriptwriter David Siefkin, shaping the initial idea (a cops-and-robbers theme) into what would become one of the best-selling edutainment games in history.įirst released on 5¼” floppy disk for play on graphic-enabled personal computers such as the Apple II, Carmen Sandiego introduced new audiences to celebrated world landmarks, exotic countries, and punny henchmen.

Brøderbund programmer Dane Bigham was originally inspired by the text game Colossal Cave Adventure to create a graphical, streamlined adventure for children. Gumshoes first began pursuing this particular master thief in the 1985 release of Brøderbund’s Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Developed as a game with a menu-driven interface (replacing the standard text-driven applications of early 1980s computer games), Carmen Sandiego evolved into an educational game that made learning geography fun for millions of school-aged students.

Well, she sneaks around the world from Rwanda to… Rochester?

Where in the world is carmen sandiego