Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego

Sometime in 1993, I was sitting in front of a monitor, with a world geography dictionary beside me and my mom, who had no idea why her son was suddenly studying American states so intensely. The reason was simple: Carmen Sandiego had escaped again.

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? from 1992 is an educational detective game by Brøderbund, a studio that had incredibly consistent quality at the time — Prince of Persia, Karateka, Myst. The Carmen Sandiego series was their golden goose: games that taught you geography before you even realized you were learning. This time, the action moved from Europe back home — to the USA. Carmen and her gang from the V.I.L.E. organization are wreaking havoc across American states, and you're an agent on their trail.

The mechanics remain the same, a tried-and-tested loop: you arrive in a city, interview witnesses, gather clues, identify a suspect from the file, and issue a warrant. Then you move on until you catch the crook. Time is ticking, clues intertwine in various ways, and if you guess wrong about where to fly next, the criminal is gone. The game subtly but relentlessly pushes you to know where Kentucky is and what Vermont is famous for. No shortcuts. Either you know it, or you lose.

The 1992 version came with VGA graphics, and by the standards of the time it was a noticeable leap — animated V.I.L.E. henchmen during arrests added a touch of cinematic flair to the scenes. The sound design, however, was still stuck in the PC speaker and basic MIDI era, so anyone expecting an audio experience to match the visuals was disappointed. Of course, that doesn't matter today, because playing these games with sound is more of a choice than a necessity.

What aged well: the tension of the race against time still works. The satisfaction you feel when you piece the clues together correctly and hit the right airport is gratifying in a way modern games rarely practice. What aged less well: the suspect database and progression are very formulaic; after a few hours, the routine gets a bit tight. The game is also primarily designed for American players — some of the details assume knowledge of American culture and geography that a Central European player in the nineties simply lacked. Personally, thanks to Carmen, I knew where Baton Rouge was before I knew where Ostrava was.

Today, it will mainly appeal to nostalgics who remember that distinctive music and the tension of the final minutes before a case goes cold. But you can also confidently recommend it to older kids as an alternative to dry trivia quizzes — the game doesn't lecture geography, it demands it. And that's a difference that counts.