Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego?

Where in the U.S.A. (1986): the chase comes home

Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? arrived in 1986, the first sequel and the first time the V.I.L.E. chase narrowed from the whole planet to a single country. You still chase a crook, read witnesses, and file the warrant — but now the map is the United States, fifty cities standing in for the fifty states, plus Washington, D.C. The loot is American: monuments, heritage, the odd state treasure.

Fodor's USA, the travel guide in the box

The book in the box this time was a genuine commercial one — Fodor's USA — bundled with a map and a printed companion. It worked exactly like the almanac before it: reference and copy protection in one. At certain promotions the game would ask you to look up a specific word on a specific page of the guide, which rewarded the players who actually cracked it open.

Because the field shrank to one nation, the clues got sharper-grained. Instead of currencies and flags you're decoding state nicknames, capitals, landmarks, industries, crops and climate. Close enough cases and you come out the other side with a working mental map of the country.

How Where in the U.S.A. plays

The mechanics are the 1985 game's, unchanged for a reason. At each stop you dig for destination clues pointing to the next state and suspect-trait clues describing the crook, log the traits to narrow the field, and issue the warrant before the arrest. Catch all of Carmen's crew and the agency finally trusts you with the woman herself. The clock never stops running, so a wrong flight is doubly painful: wasted hours and a cold trail.

Where in the U.S.A. in the Carmen Sandiego series

This is the entry that proved the formula could travel. Keep the warrant-and-witness loop, swap the setting and the bundled book, and let a new subject teach itself through the chase. Everything after it — Europe, Time, and the rest — runs on the template U.S.A. set. A VGA Enhanced edition repainted it in 1991, and the ground-up Deluxe remake brought a new gang, stock photographs and state music, with spoken dialogue on its Windows CD-ROM version. The other ports are in ports and re-releases.

Play Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (1986) online in your browser

Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? runs right here in your web browser, free, with nothing to download or install. The copy here is the MS-DOS version, © 1986, 1987, played from the keyboard.

Anything the game writes to its own disk, from your detective's rank to a saved case, is kept in this browser, and in your account too once you sign in. Press Play in browser at the top of this page to open the case.