Carmen Sandiego Math Detective
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Carmen Sandiego Math Detective | |
|---|---|
 CD cover art | |
| Developer | Broderbund |
| Series | Carmen Sandiego |
| Platforms | Mac OS, Windows |
| Release | Winter 1998[1] |
| Genre | Educational |
| Mode | Single-player |
Carmen Sandiego Math Detective is a 1998 Carmen Sandiego video game. It is similar in structure to Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, which was released a year before.
Plot and gameplay
Carmen Sandiego has shrunk famous landmarks into crystals using the Quantum Crystallizer machine, which the player must restore to their full size. The player infiltrates Carmen's hideout, but they are discovered. They manage to escape to the room with the Quantum Crystallizer where Chase instructs them to travel to different hideouts to find the pods that contain the landmarks. The player plays math-related minigames such as Atom Smasher, Crimewave Sensor, and Microchip Decoder, which, when completed, provide passwords to open the pods. Once the player has enough passwords, they can get the crystals, narrowly avoiding villains in the process, which allows them to free the landmarks from the crystals using the machine and return them to their original spot. The game comes with "over 400 word problems, a strategy guide, glossary of math terms and progress reports". There are 3 levels of difficulty.[4][5]
Once all the landmarks are freed, Carmen reveals that she has been drawing power to the machine to make VILE central all-powerful. As the machine activates, the player unlocks it so Chase can reach the rock inside it. He puts the missing part of the rock in it, causing it to disappear, foiling Carmen's plan. After a confrontation with Carmen, she escapes.
The game teaches skills including: word problems, estimation, geometry, equations, modelling, whole numbers, money, fractions and decimals. These are presented as activities that help solve the game's puzzles rather than tiresome, repetitive exercises.[6]
Commercial performance
Around the year of its release, the game series had sold 6 million copies (40,000 in elementary schools).[7]
