Where in the World v3.0 (1996) and the 1998 v3.5

Version 3.0 on paper

The third game to carry the title Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is unusually frank about its version number. The README on the CD is headed “v3.0” and dated 24 April 1996, the Windows 95 installer writes ProductVersion=3.0, and both the program and its autorun launcher call it “Carmen World 3.0”. Brøderbund announced on 26 August 1996 that it had begun shipping, at a street price of about $40. It is the third version of the game, after the 1985 original and the Deluxe Edition.

Two Windows programs on one disc

The Windows CD holds two installers. SETUP16 installs a 16-bit program for Windows 3.1 and copies Microsoft's WinG graphics DLLs into the system folder; SETUP32 installs Carmen32.exe for Windows 95. Both need QuickTime for Windows 2.1 or newer, which the installer marks “Required”, because the Chief's video and the opening sequence are QuickTime movies. The engine is Brøderbund's Mohawk, with art, speech and clues packed into .MHK archives. The game runs in 256 colours or in thousands and refuses millions; per the README, 256 colours scrolls the panoramas better and thousands makes the video look better. The same README tells Windows 95 owners with stuttering travel sound to install the Windows 3.1 build instead, which is not advice you see every day.

The launch requirements were a 33 MHz 486, 8 MB of RAM, 3 MB of disk, a double-speed CD-ROM drive and a 640×480 display in 256 colours. The Mac version asked for a 20 MHz 68040 or a Power Macintosh, System 7.0.1 and 8 MB of RAM (see Carmen Sandiego on the Macintosh).

In the box

Brøderbund's 1997 product sheet lists it for ages 9 and up, product code 45620, ISBN 1-57382-072-5, with a paperback World Almanac and Book of Facts as a bonus, so the almanac habit survived the CD-ROM era. The manual was a 40-page “ACME Agent Handbook”. The disc also carried AT&T WorldNet sign-up software with Netscape Navigator Personal Edition, and the World Wiz Database can minimise the game and launch a web browser.

v3.5, the 1998 “Deluxe Edition”

The revision is v3.5; its README is dated 30 April 1998 and covers Windows 95, 98 and 3.1. It wants QuickTime 2.12 exactly (“will not work with older or newer versions”) and 15 MB of disk. Kids Domain reviewed it as the Deluxe Edition and listed the additions: a flight attendant who welcomes you in the local language with an English subtitle, an “ACME Global Language Link-Up” satellite in every country that quizzes you on that language, and an “ultrabar” that uncovers RoboCrook once you fill it with right answers. Its feature list adds an ACME Talking Translator with phrases in 12 languages. The detective game underneath stayed put: v3.5's main data file holds the same forty crooks, eight ranks and interface text as 3.0. The update has its own credit block, with design by Matt Fishbach, Dennis Leahy and Jeff Joseph.

Mind the name. This “Deluxe” has nothing to do with the 1990 Deluxe Edition; it is v3.0 with a language layer. The README and installer state the version outright, and on the disc 3.0 keeps its .MHK files in the root where 3.5 moves them into a DATA folder.

Reissues

After Brøderbund's sale (see the Learning Company years), The Learning Company issued v3.5.3, whose notes are dated 30 July 1999. A 2004 school-market edition, sometimes called 4.0, came with a teacher resource CD. Macintosh Repository holds Mac images of 3.0, 3.5, 3.5.3, a Spanish 3.5 and the 4.0 school edition.