''Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective'' (sometimes referred to as ''Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition'', ''Junior Detective Edition'', or ''Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition'') is a 1995 education game in the '' Carmen Sandiego'' franchise developed by Broderbund. Although not a version of ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'' by name, it is essentially a simplified version of it for pre-readers. Allgame says the game "is geared for younger users, with only 14 cases to solve". The lead characters of the

FOX Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...

animated series '' Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?'', Zack and Ivy, were included in the game, along with Stretch - "ACME's crime-tracking dog".

Production notes

Although Zack, Ivy, the Chief and Carmen Sandiego seem to have the same voice actors as in ''Earth'', Carmen's appearance is different from 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 The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

, 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.

Geographical errors

Notably, this is the first post-

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

version of the ''World'' game, meaning it is the first to feature Russia instead of the Soviet Union. However, the map of Asia used in the game inaccurately shows Sakhalin to be under the dominion of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. In actuality, the island is under the control of Russia, as it was at the time this game was produced.

Gameplay

The game is played on a device called the GizmoTapper 586-LC 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 A magnifying glass is a convex lens that is used to produce a magnified image of an object. The lens is usually mounted in a frame with a handle. A magnifying glass can be used to focus light, such as to concentrate the sun's radiation to crea ...

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 that represents a characteristic of the destination country's culture or economy (e.g. coffee, cathedrals, snakes, gold). 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. After the final photographs have been taken and the wanted poster assembled, the user is presented to a final country, where he or she must simply find a single clue. Once a clue is found, the chase begins (see The Warrant and the Arrest) 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 (which is expended by traveling between countries, finding clues, and assembling the wanted poster). Another change is that each location is identified by the name of the country rather than the name of a city within that country. 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 together in a wanted poster located in the bottom right corner of the GizmoTapper. Failure to do this will result in the culprit escaping at the end of the case. As the game progresses, the wanted poster will have more pieces to it, making it increasingly difficult to assemble. The user is not required to answer questions in order to be promoted.

Critical reception

The German ''PC Player'' gave the game a score of 70 out of 100. Lisa Karen Savignano of Allgame gave the game a rating of 4 stars out of 5, which is broken down into 4 stars for graphics, 4 stars for sound, 4 stars for enjoyment, 3 stars for replay value, and 4 stars for documentation. The game received the 1995

Codie award The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

for Best Early Education Program.

References

External links

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The Daily Gazette - Google News Archive Search

New Technologies for Education: A Beginner's Guide - Ann E. Barron, Gary W. Orwig - Google Books
{{Carmen Sandiego 1995 video games Carmen Sandiego games Classic Mac OS games Detective video games Single-player video games Video games developed in the United States Windows games