• Mac Os Versions
• Mac Os Mojave
• Dear Carmen Mac Os X
• Dear Carmen Mac Os X
• Dear Carmen Mac Os Catalina

A nonchalant collection of funny pictures, slightly-dank memes, and somewhat crazy videos that eBaum's World users uploaded from all over the internet from dashcams, the deep web, security cameras and sometimes right off Youtube or even their own phones.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review At that same WWDC, Apple announced Time Machine, a product that would record file system versions through time for backup and recovery. Dear Kate, Here’s to the crazy ones. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.

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[edit]

The intro to this 'spy adventure'^[1] 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.^[2]

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'.^[1]

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

Production[edit]

Background[edit]

By 1996, the consumer software market had become hugely competitive. Broderbund was forced to cut their prices, and were also affected by the delay of the sequel to Myst which they were to publish. Their stock dropped as low as $17.75 a share in 1997. In an effort to restructure, packaged goods veteran Joseph P. Durrett was named as Broderbund CEO who put in control measures and a management structure focused on the bottom line. 'The days of flexible budgets and free spending were quickly replaced by a cost consciousness that put every creative decision under scrutiny'. For the first time in Broderbund history, employees were pressured to complete projects using tighter deadlines and smaller budgets. In addition to squeezed margins, Broderbund was frustrated that their own success had attracted many competitors into the market. Despite flashy marketing, these were often inferior products demanding a high price. There was a fear that parents, upset by the wasted purchase, would become more sceptical about purchasing computer games in the future.^[5]

Word Workshop and conception[edit]

According to Laurie Strand, Vice president of Broderbund, Carmen Sandiego Word Detective 'began as an educational game called 'Word Workshop,' a language-learning companion to the company's popular 'Math Workshop [released in 1994]'.^[5] The game had undergone an intense six months of design and development and was near completion, when management approached the team and ordered that the game be redesigned as a line extension of the Carmen Sandiego franchise to improve its chance in the stores where shelf space was being fought over. Mrs Strand called the team into the room and explained they had to redo all the game's assets in the context of Carmen Sandiego, which they proceeded to do without objection. The production manager rallied the creative team for the first meeting after the design change.^[5] Eight staffers and outside contractors, consisting of artists, writers, software designers and programmers met to brainstorm a narrative that would allow the game to fit into the franchise. Someone suggested that Carmen steal the unstealable - language - who would scramble words that the player would have to solve to foil her plan. A freelance writer who was brought in for the meeting suggested introducing a new secret agent character who had a checkered past but ultimately helped the player, which was incorporated.^[5]

Development and release[edit]

Once the storyline was in place, the production manager drew up a mission statement and gave assignments to the team, including writing the script and creating the audiovisual assets. Someone suggested sponsoring a contest on America Online to name the new character, an approach that eventually led to him being called 'Chase Devineaux'. The artists began drawing the characters and 20 contract animators from around the United States were hired to assist with the time-consuming task. A design document was drawn up to ensure a cohesiveness aesthetic across the various locations the player can visit.^[5] The game's structure broke away from the template established in previous entries within the franchise, and therefore new software code had to be written. To accommodate the game's 8 through 14 age range, levels of difficulty were offered for players to advance through. During production, educational content was reviewed by a panel of teachers who served as advisers. Prototypes were built at each step along the development process, and two-hour meetings were held each week to chart the game's progress. The title went into full production within six months, which was about a third the usual time. While the employees were not paid royalties, they were given competitive salaries and bonuses and made the game from their passion in the art and science of gaming to produce high-quality software. The game was released late 1997.^[5]

Aftermath[edit]

Broderbund at the time prided itself on having a 'very vocal and opinionated culture' which encouraged team-based collaboration, with individuals having 'spirited and heated discussions' about aspects of development. Strand appreciated that her team had a shared vision and an ability to respect each other's disciplines, with the team feeling creatively fulfilled by bringing characters from their childhood to life in a computer game. Harry Wilker, senior vice president for product development at Broderbund, commented that the goal was only able to reached through everyone following a singular design vision, for the person with that vision to be in control, and by hiring talent over self-aggrandizing types'.^[5]

Critical reception[edit]

Learning Village felt that the 5 minigames 'cover...an excellent range of basic and important skills in language arts [and are] visually engaging', with the game offering both a sleuthing and chase experience.^[1]MultiMedia Schools noted the title's instructional allowed it to produce 'significant growth' in students and improve their attitude toward language arts.^[9]PC Mag noted the game favors education over detailed graphics, animation, and action, though added it was able to frame tedious drills within an engaging setting.^[10] Literacy for Children in an Information Age noted the title's ability to teach parts of speech, sentence structure, punctuation, using words in context, spelling rules, word definitions, and dictionary skills.^[11] Ann Orr of Working Mother recommended the software as one of the best computer game 'homework helpers' of 1998, noting the playful way it expands vocabularies.^[12]Technological Horizons In Education described he game's interface as 'intuitive and highly imaginative'.^[13]

The game won the 1998 Codie award for Best Home Education for Pre-Teens.^[6]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc'Carmen Sandiego Word Detective'. Learning Village. Archived from the original on December 26, 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
2. ^''Carmen Sandiego Word Detective' by Finley, Sally - MultiMedia Schools, Vol. 5, Issue 4, September/October 1998 Online Research Library: Questia'. www.questia.com. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
3. ^'Carmen San Diego Word Detective'. Kidsclick. Retrieved November 1, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
4. ^'Carmen Sandiego Word Detective'. Archived from the original on 1998-04-24. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
5. ^ ^abcdefgRifkin, Glenn. 'Competing Through Innovation: The Case of Broderbund'. strategy+business. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
6. ^ ^ab'SIIA Codie Awards Past Winners'. www.siia.net. Retrieved 2016-11-18.
7. ^'The Learning Company - Carmen Sandiego Word Detective'. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
8. ^http://www.parents-choice.org/product.cfm?product_id=772&StepNum=1&award=aw
9. ^''Carmen Sandiego Word Detective' by Finley, Sally - MultiMedia Schools, Vol. 5, Issue 4, September/October 1998 Online Research Library: Questia'. www.questia.com. Retrieved 2018-12-29.
10. ^Inc, Ziff Davis (1998-09-01). PC Mag. Ziff Davis, Inc.
11. ^Cohen, Vicki; Cowen, John (2007-01-26). Literacy for Children in an Information Age: Teaching Reading, Writing, and Thinking. Cengage Learning. ISBN9780534611194.
12. ^Media, Working Mother (September 1998). Working Mother. Working Mother Media.
13. ^Schneider, Jim; Willis, William (1998-04-01). 'Focus on Language Arts'. T H e Journal (Technological Horizons in Education). 25 (9): 22. ISSN0192-592X.

External links[edit]

• Carmen Sandiego Word Detective at MobyGames

This page details one or more prototype versions of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? (1997).

A one-case demo of the 1997 Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? was put out before the game's release to drum up interest. The readme dates it at May 13th, 1997, exactly three months before the date in the final version's readme, and it's clear that there was still a lot of work left to be done at that point.

The game starts off with a few demo-exclusive live-action clips of Lynne Thigpen as 'The Chief' summarizing the plot of the game, followed by the usual Time Tunnel intro sequence and the entirety of Case 1. After completing the case, a few more video clips preview other parts of the game and encourage players to contact Brøderbund for ordering information.

• 3Graphics
• 4Music
• 7Text

Sub-Page

General Differences

• The demo is 32-bit only, but the final game expanded support to 16-bit Windows systems. The readme was greatly enlarged to accommodate this.

Graphics

Title Screen

The demo version has a much more elaborate title animation. The final trades it out for a prerendered Broderbund logo sequence and a smaller, more polished Carmen animation.

Time Tunnel

The preview image of Egypt shown in the pre-case Time Tunnel sequence was redone for the final. Apparently the awkward resizing job to get the boatman in the frame was a no-go.

Ann Tickwittee's Time Tunnel graphics are slightly, uh, off in the demo.

Yikes.

Ann's Time Tunnel exit sequence is just as unpolished as her entrance. Note that the animation shown isn't 100% accurate; Sir Vile's movements are much faster and jerkier in-game.

The post-case review graphic isn't displayed in the demo, which is good since it's sorely lacking in looking like a sarcophagus instead of a filing cabinet.

Renee Santz doesn't appear in the demo, but Time Tunnel graphics of her appear in the data files anyway. Naturally, they're mangled similarly to Ann's.

Here's part of Renee's departure animation – the rest of it seems to have been removed from the demo. The final versions of the entrance animations are more elaborate but less unique.

Case 1

Mac Os Versions

The graphic of the torch on the boat was redrawn and recolored for the final to match its appearance in the inventory.

Previews

The preview pictures from other cases shown at the end of the demo are possibly mockups, judging by minor differences in the positioning of characters, but this is the only one that really contains any changes of interest: a path was added to the mountains on the left side of the screen to make it more obvious that there's an exit there.

Music

Title Screen

The title fanfare was redone for the final to accommodate the altered logo sequence.

Time Tunnel

The Time Tunnel background music was rerendered at a lower volume in the final version.

Case Previews

This piece of music is exclusive to the demo, where it plays over the previews shown after solving the case.

Sound

The crackling noises in the Time Tunnel were touched up a bit for the final. This effect was given a layer of delay.

This one was replaced.

Finally, this one was just scrapped outright.

Dialogue

All of the spoken dialogue was rerendered for the final with some additional processing to normalize the volume and suppress overly loud or crackly phonemes.

This is one of the more distinct examples. Notice how much more pronounced the '-ed' in 'asked' is in the demo compared to the final.

For the most part, the dialogue itself is the same. Only a couple of lines were altered substantially:

The tail end of Ann's comment about the temple was snipped. Apparently it's not such a perfect monument after all.

The end of this line was also cut, this time due to a blatant error – Osiris is the god of the underworld, not the name of it.

Text

Chronopedia

Despite only being a one-case demo, all the Chronopedia entries are in the game, most of them still in draft or placeholder form. See the sub-page for details.

Dialogue

Though there are only a couple of changes to the dialogue itself, the subtitles were touched up for the final. The vast majority of the changes are simply due to proofreading. Generally:

• All capitalized occurrences of 'Pharaoh' not used as a proper title (as in 'Pharaoh Thutmose III') were changed to 'pharaoh'.
• Capitalization of 'The Book of the Dead' was made consistent throughout the case.
• Most instances of capitalized 'Afterlife' were changed to 'afterlife'.
• Someone attempted to make sure every period was followed by two spaces. However, this seems to have been a bad find and replace job; many sentences ended up with extra spaces, and some words that didn't need them got them anyway.
• Use of dashes was made regular: always a space, two hyphens, and a space (' -- ').

'Pharaoh' -> 'pharaoh', fixed dash spacing.

Single space after period changed to double space.

'the book' -> 'the Book'.

Same as previous.

Since player dialogue isn't voiced, the writers were free to fiddle with it more. Generally, the dialogue is a bit more polite and natural-sounding in the final.

As above.

'The Book of the Dead' -> 'the Book of the Dead'.

'the Afterlife' -> 'the afterlife'.

'realm of the Dead' -> 'realm of the dead'.

Deemphasis of 'his majesty', dash spacing.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

Dash spacing.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

Extra space added after 'V.I.L.E.'. Probably an accident caused by mass find and replace of periods followed by one space with periods followed by two spaces.

'Carmen note' -> 'Carmen Note'.

'Carmen note' -> 'Carmen Note'.

Same double-space-after-V.I.L.E. issue.

'Temple' -> 'temple'.

Dash spacing.

'Pharaoh' -> 'pharaoh'.

Mac Os Mojave

Period spacing.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

'Afterlife' -> 'afterlife'.

'Carmen note' -> 'Carmen Note'.

Dear Carmen Mac Os X

Superfluous space added after the period (probably another find and replace issue).

Dash spacing.

Dear Carmen Mac Os X

'Pharaoh' -> 'pharaoh'.

Dear Carmen Mac Os Catalina