Making v3.0: production, launch and reception

Thirteen months, thirty-odd people

Brøderbund's own FAQ gives the schedule: brainstorming on the design began in February 1994, production took “about 13 months”, and “over 30 people” worked on it. The credits put names to that: Bo Everson lead designer, Todd Arnold producer, Louis Ewens lead programmer, Marcela Pesqueira Evans art director, Stuart Lowder animation director, Greg Rahn music and sound design, Ken Goldstein executive producer. The clues were written by David Birchman, Geoff Rodkey, Larry Tuch and John Whitman, and outside studios including Wild Brain and U.S. Animation helped with the animation.

The panoramas started as photographs “taken at real locations by a photographer spinning in a circle,” says the FAQ, which admits the spinning “occasionally made the photographers dizzy” and that artists painted out the odd clump of bushes. Many were shot for the game, by photographers such as Peter Korniss in Hungary and Thomas Kelly in Nepal. The National Geographic Society supplied the database's reference material, photos and video, and the location music.

From Toy Fair to the shelf

Billboard's Toy Fair report of 9 March 1996 had the game due in July at an expected $59.95, with “geopolitical maps from National Geographic for more than 50 countries”. (The finished credits give the base maps to Digital Wisdom, Inc.) On 24 August Billboard called the new World and USA games “hotly anticipated” and “due in the fall”. Two days later, on 26 August 1996, Brøderbund announced it had begun shipping at about $40, with “over two thousand clues”, each spoken and written. Goldstein, quoted in the release, said the changes “may set a new standard for educational software.”

Reception

Peter Oliver of Kids Domain called it “computer gaming at its best”. The Chicago Tribune (Karen Torme Olson, 10 April 1997) gave the World and USA games four stars out of four and visited Don Valiska, social studies chairman at Thornridge High School, who had made the Carmen CD-ROM part of his curriculum. PC Data's 1996 home-education chart, as reported by Kidscreen, put Where in the World second on DOS/Windows behind Disney's Toy Story Animated StoryBook. Read that one carefully: the title already sat at No. 2 in March 1996, five months before v3.0 shipped, so the annual figure blends the old CD-ROM with the new one.

For the record: the awards

Wikipedia's article on this game lists a Codie for Best Secondary Education Program, but its source is a Brøderbund release of 22 March 1995, which gives that award to “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (CD-ROM)”, the earlier disc, seventeen months before v3.0 shipped. Brøderbund's 1997 awards page lists a PC World 1996 World Class Award and a 1995 SPA award under the title, but links them to the older CD-ROM's product page, so neither can be pinned on v3.0. The Allgame “huge leap forward” quote that travels with this game was written about Where in the USA. For the series' earlier honours, see Reception and awards, 1985–1997.