Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time
From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
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| Developers | |
|---|---|
| Brøderbund | |
| Publishers | |
| 1997 - 1999 | Brøderbund |
| 1999 - present | The Learning Company |
| Engines | |
| Mohawk Engine | |
| Release dates | |
| Windows | August 13, 1997 |
| Mac OS (Classic) | August 13, 1997 |
| Taxonomy | |
| Modes | Singleplayer |
| Pacing | Relaxed |
| Perspectives | Cinematic camera |
| Controls | Point and select |
| Genres | Adventure, Educational |
| Art styles | Cartoon |
| Themes | Sci-fi, Historical |
| Series | Carmen Sandiego |
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Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time is a 1997 point and select educational adventure game in the Carmen Sandiego series developed by Brøderbund. A more traditional game in the genre compared to past franchise entries, the player, an ACME Agent, must travel through time to capture Carmen Sandiego and her V.I.L.E. henchmen before they permanently alter the course of history. The game itself is partially based on the PBS game show Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? and features its theme song.
This game was originally released in 1997 as Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? and is titled as such in-game. It was rebranded by The Learning Company in 1999 as Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time.
There are issues when attempting to install the game under a 64-bit operating system (see Installing on a 64-bit OS). Even then, the game has issues running under a modern OS (see Issues unresolved).
General information
- Game manual (as Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?)
Availability
| Source | DRM | Notes | Keys | OS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail | |
|
Game data
Configuration file(s) location
| System | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | <path-to-game>\[Note 1] |
| Mac OS (Classic) |
Save game data location
| System | Location |
|---|---|
| Windows | <path-to-game>\[Note 1] |
| Mac OS (Classic) |
- Save game file is mostly encrypted; the only parts of the file that are not encrypted are player names.
Video
Game options.
| Graphics feature | State | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widescreen resolution | The game runs at 640x480. | ||
| Multi-monitor | |||
| Ultra-widescreen | |||
| 4K Ultra HD | |||
| Field of view (FOV) | |||
| Windowed | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | ||
| Borderless fullscreen windowed | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | ||
| Anisotropic filtering (AF) | |||
| Anti-aliasing (AA) | |||
| Vertical sync (Vsync) | |||
| 60 FPS | Full-motion video cutscenes are 10 FPS. | ||
| 120+ FPS | |||
| Color blind mode | The colors of kimono jackets and linings in Case 4 are described on mouseover. | ||
Input
| Keyboard and mouse | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Remapping | See the glossary page for potential workarounds. | |
| Mouse acceleration | ||
| Mouse sensitivity | ||
| Mouse input in menus | A mouse is required to play the game. | |
| Mouse Y-axis inversion | ||
| Controller | ||
| Controller support |
Audio
| Audio feature | State | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Separate volume controls | On/off switch for sound and music. Sound only turns off speech, not sound effects, and does not affect the FMV cutscenes. | |
| Surround sound | ||
| Subtitles | Is turned on by default. FMV cutscenes do not have subtitles or captions. | |
| Closed captions | ||
| Mute on focus lost |
Localizations
| Language | UI | Audio | Sub | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English |
Issues unresolved
When using DDrawCompat, the QuickTime movies only show a single frame, and cutscenes don't render. The game refuses to stay windowed even when forced using a DirectX wrapper.
- Microsoft's compatibility mode does not fix the graphical glitches.
- Both dgVoodoo2 and WineD3D are unable to resolve the graphical glitches, DDrawCompat is the best solution currently.
Issues fixed
Installing on a 64-bit OS
- Recommended only if you do not have access to a virtual machine with an older OS (see Issues unresolved).
When attempting to install the game on a modern 64-bit OS, the SETUP.EXE Autorun from the CD's base folder does not work, as it is a 16-bit program.
| Install on 64-bit OS[citation needed] |
|---|
Notes
|
Black screens and graphical glitches
| Use a DirectDraw wrapper[1] |
|---|
Notes
|
Other information
Hearing-impaired assistance
- Case 16 has a music sheet-reordering puzzle that requires players to listen to parts of the openings to Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth symphonies, which can be difficult for players with hearing problems like that of the composer himself.
- Enabling "Hearing-impaired assistance" in the game options will change the descriptions of the different-colored sheets from their colors (written as "[Color] Score", e.g. "Blue Score") to their correct ordered positions (written as "[Ordinal Numeral] Sheet", e.g. "First Sheet"), allowing deaf or hard-of-hearing players to complete the case.
Other information
API
| Executable | PPC | 16-bit | 32-bit | 64-bit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | |||||
| Mac OS (Classic) |
System requirements
| Windows | ||
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| Operating system (OS) | 3.1, 95 | |
| Processor (CPU) | 66 MHz 486DX or faster | |
| System memory (RAM) | 8 MB | 16 MB |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) | 5 MB | |
| Video card (GPU) | SVGA video card 640x480, 256 colors | DirectX 3.0b compatible |
| Sound (audio device) | Windows compatible | |
| Other | 2X CD-ROM drive or faster | |
| Mac OS | ||
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | ||
| Operating system (OS) | 7.1.2 | |
| Processor (CPU) | PowerPC required | |
| System memory (RAM) | 9.5 MB | |
| Hard disk drive (HDD) | 5 MB | |
| Other | 2X CD-ROM drive or faster 13-inch or larger color monitor, 256 colors |
|
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below
%PROGRAMFILES%,%PROGRAMDATA%, or%WINDIR%might be redirected to%LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStoreon Windows Vista and later (more details).