Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego? (1986)
The 1986 sequel that swapped countries for the fifty states and shipped with a Fodor's USA travel guide.
Overview
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (1986) is the second game in the series and the first to narrow its focus from the whole world to a single country. Instead of chasing V.I.L.E. across nations, the player pursues crooks through the fifty U.S. states and Washington, D.C., recovering items of American history and heritage.
Gameplay
The loop is unchanged from the original: travel state to state, question witnesses for destination and suspect-trait clues, and file a warrant before making the arrest. Destination clues lean on U.S. geography — state nicknames, capitals, landmarks, products, and natural features — rather than flags and currencies.
The game shipped with a copy of Fodor's USA, a genuine commercial travel guide, plus a map and a scrapbook of reference material. Reaching the next rank required entering specific words from designated pages of the guide, tying promotion directly to the bundled reference book.