Carmen Isabella Sandiego[5] is a fictional character featured in a long-running edutainment video games series of the same name created by the American software company Broderbund. As an international lady thief, a criminal mastermind, and the elusive nemesis of the ACME Detective Agency, Carmen Sandiego is the principal character of the video game series and the head of ACME's rival organization, V.I.L.E. She is depicted as an extremely intelligent, stylish, fashionable woman whose signature look features a red, matching fedora and trenchcoat. Many of her crimes depicted in the games involve spectacular and often impossible cases of monument theft, which are used as a pretext to teach children geography via the simulated process of tracking down the character, the stolen monuments, and her accomplices all over the world with her sidekicks Zack and Ivy.
Carmen Sandiego's authors were Gene Portwood, Lauren Elliott, and Dane Bigham. Writer David Siefkin, who wrote the first script of the project and invented the character's name, left to become a diplomat for the U.S. State Department before the first game was released in 1985. The character's identity as a Hispanic woman has remained a consistent and integral part of her character, and visually, she was partly influenced by the Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda.[6] Her last name alludes to the city of San Diego, California. Carmen Sandiego is referred to by such epithets as The Miss of Misdemeanor, Vicious & Cruel, The Queen of Crime, and The World's Greatest Thief.
Character overview
There are numerous discrepancies in the various media depicting Carmen Sandiego, and no official or correct canon has been designated or established. However, the following seems to have remained consistent throughout all Carmen Sandiego media created since around the mid-1980s:
In most Carmen Sandiego media, it is stated or implied that Carmen is a lady thief in that she steals only for the challenge of it, although some of her V.I.L.E. minions are more traditionally motivated. She often describes her schemes and the protagonists' attempts to stop them as being a game, which they ironically are, regularly gloating that she will never be captured, that her plans are infallible, and acting as though any efforts made against her are extremely trivial. Sometimes, she asserts that it is impossible for anyone to understand her motives and seems to revel at how difficult she can make it for anyone trying to figure her out.
In the original 1985 Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? game, Carmen is characterized as a former spy for the Intelligence Service of Monaco and that she is "an agent, double agent, triple agent, and quadruple agent for so many countries that even she has forgotten which one she is working for," but this background seems to have since been abandoned.
Starting with Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time (formerly Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?), it is explained that she was an ace detective for the ACME Detective Agency who found catching criminals too easy and decided that outsmarting ACME itself would make for greater challenges. This origin story was consistently maintained for over a decade, with one of the protagonists of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge being Carmen's former partner.
In both the animated TV series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? and in the video game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, it is heavily hinted that, despite her thieving ways, she may still have some goodness left in her. The character has, however, never been depicted turning back to the good side outright, although she has often been encouraged to do so. Nevertheless, Carmen tries to maintain a reputation as a "thief with a conscience" in the Earth series and ACME agents who used to work closely with her are often shown to have mixed feelings about imprisoning her.
Backstory
In the games, ACME Headquarters is primarily located in San Francisco and the leader of ACME is called "The Chief". Carmen Sandiego was a brilliant agent for the ACME Detective Agency until she left and formed the Villains' International League of Evil (V.I.L.E.). V.I.L.E. seeks to commit incredible thefts and/or cause chaos in other ways, while ACME tries to thwart them and capture their agents. In the computer games, the thefts of the minor henchmen are almost always meant to keep ACME occupied before Carmen herself pulls off the real crime, usually something monumental and significant to the theme of the game. Carmen is incredibly, at times almost supernaturally, elusive and her permanent capture would be ACME's holy grail.
Carmen Sandiego was voiced by Rita Moreno in the Earth animated series. This animated television series reveals a unique backstory about Carmen Sandiego. According to the show, Carmen Sandiego was an orphan raised at the Golden Gate Girls' School in San Francisco. The Chief gave her a home at the ACME Detective Agency and, by age seventeen, she solved more cases than any other ACME agent. However, she then disappeared and turned to a life of crime. Her partner when she was at ACME was a Japanese man named Suhara, who left ACME after she did and appears to now be retired. Unlike in most of the rest of the series, the reason for Carmen leaving ACME is not specifically stated, although it is speculated on by Suhara ("Déjà Vu"). In the latter seasons of the show, Carmen began to be portrayed as more of an antivillain than a proper villainess, even teaming up with the show's protagonists to defeat criminals more unscrupulous than herself on several occasions. Additionally, it was made clear that she makes a point of refusing to steal something if the theft will cause anybody harm—a vow she frequently breaks outside this canon.
The Earth series gave the franchise a timeline, with the mid-1990s (the time the show was produced) being the present. According to this timeline, Carmen joined ACME in 1985, placing her birth in approximately 1968. Her birthday is on March 1 ("The Scavenger Hunt"). In the two-part finale, Carmen Sandiego attempts to rob millionaire Malcolm Avalon of a statue but finds a portrait of someone who she believes is her mother based on a locket she owns and sparks the possibility that Avalon might be her father. Avalon refuses to believe that she is his daughter due to her propensity of being a thief and that he believes his daughter died in a hotel fire along with her mother in San Francisco. However, later on in the episodes he accepts the possibility that she might be his daughter. Before finding out the ultimate truth, Avalon falls from a roof during a battle with former ACME agent Lee Jordan and has selective amnesia of the events that have transpired. At the end of the final episode, Carmen hires a hypnotist in order to remember what happened the day of the fire. It is discovered she picked the locket off the ground, but cannot recall if it was because she dropped it, or if she found it while the hotel was burning. The finale ends with her saying, "But maybe there are just some things we aren't meant to know for sure."
why Carmen breaks the law at every turn, but her thefts are somehow forgivable because she does it more for the challenge and the thrill of it than for any personal gain, and her main concern is always the preservation of the artifacts. She even concerns herself with the kid detectives’ well-being and is known to step in on their behalf when there’s a danger.[7]
DVDTalk determines:
Carmen, bless her heart, is a thief only in the sense of her love of a mental contest; she's not out to hurt anybody, often leaving valuables behind, and, in one episode, attempting to save Ivy from harm. The teens, then, give their brains a workout with every adventure, obviously taking great delight in solving Carmen's geography riddles.[8]
According to the episode "Hot Ice", Carmen has been gone from ACME for 10 years, 3 months and 7 days.
Unlike in most of the rest of the franchise, the reason for Carmen leaving ACME is not specifically stated in the Earth series, although it was speculated by Suhara ("Déjà Vu"). In the episode "Hot Ice", Carmen points out she didn't have all the high-tech hardware Zack and Ivy have back when she was an ACME detective. In the episode "Retribution, Part 1" a scene shown in flashback shows how justified she was. This is further enforced in another episode, where Carmen is dared to try something without any of her high-tech equipment. She agrees to this, and actually pulls it off, hijacking the Orient Express with only conventional tools. Carmen is sometimes depicted as genuinely liking Zack and Ivy, and enjoying the ongoing battle of wits she has with them to the point where she will often congratulate the two for their successes regarding them as worthy opponents. Carmen thievery skills are highly complex as she has managed to steal the Mona Lisa's smile, technology to steal musical talent and even the entire beach of Kaimu Beach in Hawaii. Despite her nature as a thief, Carmen does have her nice moments. In one episode, Carmen eludes every ACME Detective at once, the detectives find that she has left them all a doll of herself that teases that it is the only Carmen that they'll catch, and wishes a Merry Christmas as a Christmas gift. In the episode "Trick or Treat" Zack and Ivy find Carmen's Halloween party. They see Sara Bellum handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, on Carmen's orders so her theft wasn't going to wreck the holiday for children. Although a villainess Carmen operates on her own brand of morals, such as being a thief in the strictest sense of the word and not killing Zack and Ivy despite gaining many opportunities to do so. She has even saved the Chief's life when he was suffering a viral malfunction and did not want to lose him and only had Manny "kidnap" him so she could get to play chess with him like they did every Christmas when she was an ACME agent.
The six Carmen Sandiego games produced from 1996 through 1999 (Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? (Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time), Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, Carmen Sandiego Math Detective and Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge) seem to form a loose canon as they feature some of the same characters. However, characters as well as some other elements often appear differently between the games due to the use of different animation styles. It is only in Word Detective and Math Detective that substantial information about Carmen is given. In this universe, Carmen's partner when she was at ACME was Chase Devineaux and one of the last cases they worked on together involved the mythical "Prometheus Rock." Although Chase and Carmen apprehended the thieves responsible for stealing it, the rock itself was not found. When Carmen left ACME, Chase was forced to leave ACME as well since he had worked so closely with her. However, Chase began working with ACME again to stop Carmen's plan to steal language with the Babbel-On Machine, as depicted in Carmen Sandiego Word Detective. In Carmen Sandiego Math Detective, the whereabouts of the Prometheus Rock became all too clear when Carmen tried to use it to make herself all-powerful, although her plans were thwarted by Agent 9 (the player) and Chase. As of Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge, Chase is again working for ACME.
In the Carmen Sandiego Treasures of Knowledge canon, Carmen was a child prodigy, who won a substantial amount of money on a game show called It's a Wise Child (a reference to J. D. Salinger's Glass family in Franny and Zooey and many of his short stories) when she was ten years old. She used the money to travel extensively around the world until she was twelve. Her partner when she was at ACME was Jules Argent, who still works for ACME and appears to be in her early twenties. Jules specifically notes that Carmen never talked about her childhood, and aside from the mention of her winning the aforementioned game show, no details of it are given. (Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge) The game show Carmen wins may be a reference to the game shows the character herself starred in.[9]
In Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective Edition, the third version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge, Carmen owns a red helicopter. In Junior Detective and in the 1996 versions of World and U.S.A., she owns a pet cat named Carmine.
In the 2019 Netflix animated series, which portrays Carmen as the hero instead of a villain, she is an orphan Argentine girl code-named "Black Sheep" who is rescued by V.I.L.E. 20 years earlier, and trained as an agent. But when she learns the organization's true goal, she turns against them and seeks to dissolve it by stealing back from them. In this series, Carmen has no personal connection to The ACME Detective Agency, but they have parallel goals in opposing V.I.L.E. and the agency pursues Carmen to investigate the agenda of her crimes which appears to have some connection to their primary enemy.
Portrayals
Games
Carmen Sandiego has often been created through animation techniques in many games, either with various forms of computer graphics or traditional animation. The Time game show is the only time the character has officially been portrayed in live action, aside from photographs in early game manuals.[11]
Carmen Sandiego's voice was heard for the first time on Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe Edition during her trial after she is captured by the player. Her voice was featured regularly in the World game show, though only during the phone tap skit. She had minor personality on the World show, aside being constantly exasperated by her crooks' incompetence and showing sarcasm. No voice artist was credited; however, later performers maintained the distinctive, slightly dusky voice she was given on World.
Attire
Carmen Sandiego is almost always portrayed as a woman who often wears a red ("carmine") trench coat, a matching fedora (though often portrayed similar to a sombrero cordobés), and long brown hair, although her hair color was given to be "auburn" or "black" in some of the earlier games of the franchise. Her hat is often shown leaving her face in shadow and obscuring her eyes. When her eyes are visible, they are usually brown, although they were blue in the Earth animated series and in the Math Detective game. In many appearances, she also wears gray or black leather gloves.
In the original Broderbund games, Carmen Sandiego wore a yellow or orange dress under her trench coat, with a matching stripe on her fedora, and red high-heeled shoes (best recognized in this outfit). She also seemed to have a flair for elegance, being described in the classic 1985 video game as having "jewelry" as a feature and in its accompanying manual as wearing a famous necklace known as the "Moon of Moldavia". In the later games developed under The Learning Company and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the character's appearance was rebooted so that she wore a grayish black catsuit under her trench coat, with the stripe on her fedora changed to match, and more practical footwear.
In the canon depicted in the Earth animated television series, her hair is black, rather than the usual brown, as are her normally gray gloves. Her hat band on Earth is orange, matching a turtle neck and skirt she wears under her trench coat in this series. Frances Martel of The Mary Sue described her as having a "keen but conservative fashion sense".[12] In the Netflix animated series, she wears a black jumpsuit under her trench coat and a black stripe on her hat, as well as a choker with a triangle pendant, although she briefly wore the classic design in the second episode. She has olive skin, auburn hair, and grey eyes.
Animation
In the Earth animated series, Carmen Sandiego also had a much larger role and was voiced by actress Rita Moreno.[13] Moreno would later voice Carmen for the game Junior Detective and the planetarium film Universe. In the games Word Detective and Math Detective, Mari Devon took on the title role. More recently, her voice was provided by Christiane Crawford for Treasures of Knowledge and The Secret of the Stolen Drums. On Time, Carmen Sandiego also had little personality and was generally portrayed as a straight villain. Furthermore, her face was never fully visible and all images of her were posterized, giving her a stylized, unreal look. Although the actress portraying Carmen in the show was not directly credited, it has been confirmed that she was played by Janine LaManna in the first season, and later Brenda Burke until the show's cancellation. LaManna and Burke also portrayed minor characters, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Eleanor Roosevelt.[14]
Efforts were made at least once, in 2006, to produce a film featuring the character, possibly starring Sandra Bullock as the titular thief.[15] In 2011 and 2012, there was talk that Jennifer Lopez would play the titular thief.[16]
The 2019 Netflix animated series presents an intimate look into Carmen Sandiego's past where viewers not only follow her escapades but also learn her origins. Her backstory was that she was an orphan from Buenos Aires taken in and raised by V.I.L.E. at their secret Canary Islands headquarters. When she learns the truth, she turns on them and seeks to undo their thievery. Gina Rodriguez is the voice of the character for the series.[17]
Cultural impact
Though her name is loosely based on the Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda, Carmen Sandiego is commonly considered to be of Hispanic descent. Carmen Sandiego is cited as having a major "cultural impact [on] Latin American girls" in particular.[12] Martel states that "Sandiego has a particular impact on girls...because she was a symbol of cultural rebellion. She is the first major American pop culture example of a mischievous yet beloved hero who also happens to be both a woman and a Latin American."[12] Julie M. Rodriguez of Care2 said: "There are so few examples of what a competent, successful Latina woman looks like in the media – and it’s wonderful to realize that, even in the infancy of the video game industry, there was at least one game working to remedy that problem".[18]
Reception
A cosplayer portraying the Carmen Sandiego character.
The character has had mostly positive reception. St. Cloud Times described her as "glamorous", "shifty", "smart", and "great fun to chase".[19] Heather Alexandra of Kotaku described her as "mysterious", "clever", "dashing", a "mastermind", "cunning", "sly", "sneaky", "smart", and fashionable, summing her up as the "perfect childhood villain".[20] Brittany Vincent of SyFy Wire stated that what drew her most to Sandiego was her "grandiose attitude and infallible confidence".[21] Robert Workman of GameDaily elected Sandiego as the 21st most "evil mastermind" in video games of all time,[22] and the website also included her among "the smartest video game babes".[23] In 2011, Complex ranked her as third on the list of "most diabolical video game she-villains",[24] and in 2012, they ranked her as the 27th coolest video game villain of all time[25] as well as the tenth on their "The Most Evil Women In Video Games" list.[26] In 2013, they placed Sandiego eleventh in a list of "12 Old School Video Game Characters Who Were Style Icons".[27] Hugh Sterbakov of GamePro also included the character on its list of "The 47 Most Diabolical Video-Game Villains of All Time", placing her 44th.[28] She was included in GameSpot's 2010 "All Time Greatest Video Game Villain" contest and lost to Sweet Tooth in "Round 1b".[29] The same site included her in their "The Ten Best Female Characters".[30]IGN placed Carmen Sandiego 62nd on their 2010 list of "The Top 100 Videogame Villains", saying she "is one tricky end boss".[31] In 2012, GamesRadar+ included her on their "Mediocre Game Babes" article and in 2013 they ranked her as the 71st best villain in their "Top 100" list.[32][33]
Related Research Articles
Cherlynne Theresa Thigpen was an American actress of stage and screen. She was known for her role as "The Chief" of ACME Crimenet in the game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and various spinoffs, and for her role as "Luna" in the Playhouse Disney children's series Bear in the Big Blue House. For her varied television work, Thigpen was nominated for six Daytime Emmy Awards. She won a Tony Award in 1997 for portraying Dr. Judith Kaufman in An American Daughter, and also played Ella Farmer on The District (2000–2003). Thigpen first gained attention for her role in the 1971 off-Broadway musical Godspell. Thigpen's character is named Lynne, and she sang "O Bless the Lord, My Soul" in the musical. Thigpen reprised her role as Lynne in the 1973 film version of Godspell, which she also starred in alongside David Haskell and Victor Garber.
Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? is an American live action/animated television series based on the series of computer games. The show was produced by DIC Productions L.P. and originally aired from 1994 to 1999, on Saturday mornings during FOX's Fox Kids Network block. Reruns aired on the Qubo television network from June 9, 2012 to May 26, 2018.
Carmen Sandiego is a series of American educational mystery video games that spawned an edutainment franchise of the same name. The game released in 1985, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, started off both the video game series and the franchise as a whole, which has continued up to the present day. Each game of the series has a particular theme and subject, where the player must use their knowledge to find Carmen Sandiego or any of her innumerable henchmen. This series was originally owned by Broderbund, but is now owned by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since its initial release the series has won over 125 awards and accolades.
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is an American half-hour children's television game show based on the Carmen Sandiego computer game series created by Broderbund. The show was hosted by Greg Lee, who was joined by Lynne Thigpen and the a cappella vocal group Rockapella, who served as the show's house band and comedy troupe. The series was videotaped in New York City at Chelsea Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios and co-produced by WQED and WGBH-TV, and aired on PBS stations from September 30, 1991, to December 22, 1995, with reruns continuing to air until May 31, 1996. A total of 295 episodes over five seasons were recorded.
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is an American half-hour children's television game show loosely based on the computer game of the same name created by Broderbund Software. Just like its predecessor, the show was produced by WGBH Boston and WQED Pittsburgh. The program ran for two seasons on PBS, consisting of 115 episodes, which ran from October 7, 1996 to December 12, 1997, with reruns airing until September 25, 1998. The show starred Lynne Thigpen as "The Chief", Kevin Shinick as "ACME Time Pilot Squadron Leader" replacing Greg Lee and "The Engine Crew" who is considered a replacement for Rockapella as various informants. The show replaced Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, and was recorded entirely at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York City, the longtime home of Sesame Street.
Carmen Sandiego is a media franchise based on a series of computer video games created by the American software company Broderbund. While the original 1985 Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? video game was classified as a "mystery exploration" series by creators and the media, the series would later be deemed edutainment when the games became unexpectedly popular in classrooms. The franchise centers around the fictional thieving villain of the same name, who is the ringleader of the criminal organization V.I.L.E.; the protagonists are agents of the ACME Detective Agency who try to thwart the crooks' plans to steal treasures from around the world, while the later ultimate goal is to capture Carmen Sandiego herself.
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is a multiplatform video game where players have to travel through time to collect clues and the warrants necessary to capture Carmen Sandiego or her henchmen. The goal of this game is to track Carmen's villains through history and arrest them and ultimately arrest Carmen herself.
Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time is a 1997 edutainment point-and-click adventure game developed by Broderbund for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh devices. The game is a remake of the 1989 time-travel title Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?, making it the second Time video game in the Carmen Sandiego franchise. The game was strongly influenced by the short-lived PBS game show, Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?. The game was previewed at the 1997 Toy Fair in New York City. A demo version was included on the CD for Carmen Sandiego Word Detective and was available on the Carmen Sandiego website. After Broderbund was sold to The Learning Company, the game was re-released with the new title - Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time - but with minimal redesign.
Carmen Sandiego Word Detective is a game in the Carmen Sandiego franchise which was released in 1997. The plot of the game sees Carmen Sandiego inventing a machine called the Babble-On Machine, and the player in the role of Agent 13, thwarting her plans by freeing all the other agents which have been captured by Carmen. The title is very similar in format to Carmen Sandiego Math Detective, which was released a year later.
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is a 1996 video game part of the Carmen Sandiego franchise. It was the third version of the game, after the 1985 original title of the same name and a 1992 Deluxe version of said game. The game's release coincided on the heels of the end of the PBS game show, and features QuickTime videos of Lynne Thigpen reprising her role as "The Chief". This was the last version of the game to follow the "classic" formula of the series, but much of the game, especially the "warrant" portion, was heavily redesigned. The Deluxe Edition released in 1998 added speech welcoming the player to each country and an "ACME Global Language Link-Up" satellite which quizzed the user on the local language. Players also received a spy watch and "an introduction to 12 foreign languages".
Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective is a 1995 education game in the Carmen Sandiego franchise developed by Broderbund. Although not a version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? by name, it is essentially a simplified version of it for pre-readers. Allgame says the game "is geared for younger users, with only 14 cases to solve". The lead characters of the FOX animated series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, Zack and Ivy, were included in the game, along with Stretch - "ACME's crime-tracking dog".
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational video game released by Broderbund on April 23, 1985. It is the first product in the Carmen Sandiego franchise. The game was distributed with The World Almanac and Book of Facts, published by Pharos Books. An enhanced version of the game was released in 1989, which did not have the almanac-based copy protection and instead used disk-based copy protection. A deluxe version was released in 1990, and featured additional animation and a reworked interface from the original version. Some of the bonus features included digitized photos from National Geographic, over 3200 clues, music from the Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, 20 villains, 60 countries, and 16 maps. CD-ROM versions for DOS and Macintosh were released in 1992, and a Windows version was released in 1994.
The remake version of Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? was released in 1996 by Windows and Macintosh and features Lynne Thigpen playing "The Chief" from the World game show. The game's opening credits finds Carmen Sandiego arriving in her underground V.I.L.E. outpost in Washington, D.C., as she and RoboCrook plan to steal America's greatest treasure from each of the 50 states. Carmen later contacts each of her 39 V.I.L.E. operatives telling them to begin their missions.
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? is a video game that was released by Broderbund in 1986 and is part of the Carmen Sandiego series. The game is a sequel to 1985's Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?. A deluxe version with updated graphics and interface was released in 1992 and a remade version was released in 1996. The goal of the game is to track Carmen Sandiego's henchmen across the United States, arrest them, and ultimately arrest Carmen herself. The game received generally positive reviews but some critics compared it unfavorably with its predecessor game, which had a global perspective.
Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational video game by Broderbund and Electronic Arts.
Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego? is a 1988 European geography-based educational computer game in the Carmen Sandiego detective mystery franchise. It was originally published by Broderbund in 1988 for Apple II, Commodore 64, and DOS, and ported to the Amiga and Macintosh in 1989. It is the third Carmen Sandiego title, after Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985) and Where in the USA Is Carmen Sandiego? (1986). Under the guidance of The Acme Agency's chief, the player completes cases to catch Carmen's henchmen; they accomplish this by traveling to European cities to find clues relating to the crook's last known whereabouts, and by gaining enough character data to issue a warrant of arrest. Once the player has captured all 15 thieves, they can pursue Carmen herself.
Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math is a series of five games released in 2011/2012 for the Wii, and is part of the Carmen Sandiego franchise. The style of the games are reminiscent of comic books. The 5-part series were the first English language console games from the Carmen Sandiego franchise since The Secret of the Stolen Drums. These "short, educational detective adventures" were only available as a download through the Nintendo Wii Shop. The games were developed by Gamelion Studios, and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. They could take up to 6 players, and required 600 Wii points. Maths topics included in the games include: Symmetry, Identifying angles, Graphing coordinates on a grid, Logic puzzles, Working with fractions, Solving equations, and Tangrams. The games are designed for elementary learners across grades 3–5.
Carmen Sandiego Returns is a 2015 social studies puzzle adventure video game, part of the Carmen Sandiego franchise. It is developed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and uses Intel RealSense Technology in order to enhance the immersive nature of player interaction. The educational game aims to teach players about world geography and culture to its 10–14 year old target market.
Carmen Sandiego is an animated action-adventure television series with educational elements, based on the media franchise of the same name created by Broderbund. The series is produced by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with WildBrain serving as the production company, and contains a "serialized look at Carmen's backstory that is told from her perspective". Serving as an origin story for the fictional thieving villain of the same name, it is the fourth Carmen Sandiego television show after the PBS game shows Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, and the Fox animated series Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?; it is also the first Carmen Sandiego related show since the end of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego in 1999.
Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal is a 2020 animated interactive television special directed by Jos Humphrey and co-directed by Kenny Park and Mike West, written by Duane Capizzi, May Chan, Sam Nisson, Susan O’Connor, Greg Ernstrom & Becky Tinker and starring Gina Rodriguez and Finn Wolfhard. It is part of the 2019 Netflix series Carmen Sandiego.
↑ "Top 100 videogame villains". IGN. Archived from the original on May 11, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010. According to one game, by the way, the villain's full name is Carmen Isabella Sandiego.
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