Casework on the Babel-Link Translator

The 1996 game keeps the old loop (follow the crook from country to country, get a warrant, make the arrest) and rewires nearly every part of it. All of an agent's work goes through one gadget, the ACME Babel-Link Translator, which greets you at sign-in: “Greetings, Gumshoe. Your ACME Babel-Link Translator is fully charged.”

Briefing and legwork

Each case opens with Lynne Thigpen's Chief on video, in the key of “There's panic in Paris!”, and a theft to match. Brøderbund's product page set the tone: “The world has lost all the salt from the Dead Sea, the gargoyles from Notre Dame, even the steps to the Tango.” Locations are whole countries, fifty of them, each a painted 360° panorama you scroll left and right. Click a passer-by and the Translator offers three lines: “Where did the suspect go?”, “Tell me about the suspect.” and “Thank you, goodbye.”

Destination clues are geography riddles, from the brisk (“He's slinking like only a cat can do in Kathmandu”) to the long way round (“Take the ‘Tan’ from Tanganyika, then the ‘Zan’ of Zanzibar, add an ‘I’ and end with ‘A’”). Description clues are deadpan: “My Doberman is taller than she is.” Scraps of paper on the ground carry appearance clues only, such as a tailor's receipt to take in an inseam by six inches (“A short job, for a short customer”) or a travel list reading toothbrush, VILE codebook, ruby-rose hair dye. Brøderbund's FAQ explains the litter: Carmen hired the ICK Janitors to sweep up after her crooks, but they bolt at the sight of an ACME agent. Any statement can go into the notepad, which stamps it with the country where you heard it.

The battery is the clock

Wikipedia calls it a “fuel limit”; Brøderbund called it a battery meter. The FAQ lists what drains it: travel (“very energy consuming”), issuing a warrant, the database's Find command, and chatting with everyone in sight. Run it flat and the losing headline reads “BABEL-LINK BATTERY BOTTOMS OUT!” The clock survives as a geography lesson: Fly by Night Travel shows each flight's time and the number of time zones crossed, and the game works out the local time when you land. Arrive on the right trail and you get a gag from Carmen's cat Carmine or the janitors Rick and Nick ICK.

Warrant and arrest

There are no dossiers. You build the crook in the Digisketch from five categories: gender, hair colour (blonde, brown, black, red or gray), height (tall, medium or short), weight (thin, average or heavy) and one accessory (hat, camera, watch or glasses). Fill it in, issue the warrant, then at the last stop pick the suspect out of a crowd of innocent bystanders. Each way to lose has its own headline: “FAILS TO OBTAIN WARRANT!”, “PRESENTS IMPROPER WARRANT!” and the bleakest, “ARRESTS FRIENDLY TOURIST!” A Good Guide can check your warrant before you commit. For the older trait-matching warrant, see Issuing the warrant.

Ranks and the endgame

There are eight ranks: Rookie, Investigator, Senior Investigator, Inspector, Senior Inspector, Detective, Master Detective and Super Sleuth. The box promises 40 cases: 39 crooks, then Carmen herself, whose capture earns a place in the Hall of Fame. Brøderbund put the average run at about 26 hours of play; one of its testers managed it in about nine. Explore Mode drops the case entirely: no tourists, no battery limit, and any country on request.