Carmen Sandiego Word Detective facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Carmen Sandiego Word Detective |
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| Developer(s) | Brøderbund |
| Publisher(s) | Brøderbund |
| Series | Carmen Sandiego |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS, Microsoft Windows |
| Release date(s) | 1997 |
| Genre(s) | Educational |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
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.
Gameplay and plot
The intro to this "spy adventure" starts off with Agent 12 (Ann Tickwitee) discovering Carmen's hideout. Under the orders of ACME secret agent Chase Devineaux, she creeps inside only to find herself trapped and starting to babble. Carmen enters and explains that she has invented a "Babble On" machine that turns speech into gibberish. She reveals her grand plan to achieve world illiteracy. The player takes the role of Agent 13, who has just been called onto the case. Agent 13 must free all twelve captured agents in order to stop Carmen's plan. To free each agent, the player uses the CyberCom 2000 to travel between a number of henchmen hideouts to find passwords. The player uncovers these passwords by completing language problems (Spellanyzer, Fusion Chamber, MicroPix, Code Breaker, and Power Pack) testing the player's vocabulary, grammar, and spelling.
After finding enough passwords, the player can unlock a container in one of the hideouts to get a key. These keys are placed at the Tower of Babble to free agents. Throughout the game, each agent gives the player a fragment of Babble-On's password. After freeing all agents, the player is able to trigger a self-destruct sequence by entering the password fragments in a cohesive sentence. Carmen escapes the crumbling building and Chase finds her hat amongst the rubble, commenting "until we meet again Carmen".
The game comes with many bonus features, including three levels of difficulty, an electronic dictionary, 10,000 spelling words, customizable spelling lists, 50 spelling rules, and an on-screen progress reports. The School Edition of the game came with a three-ring binder to hold the software, a User's Guide, a custom-developed Teacher's Guide, and a resource book Spelling Puzzles from the Usborne English Skills series.
