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 |
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Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
- Save game file is mostly encrypted; the only parts of the file that are not encrypted are player names.
Video
Input
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
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On/off switch for sound and music. Sound only turns off speech, not sound effects, and does not affect the FMV cutscenes. |
Surround sound |
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Subtitles |
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Is turned on by default. FMV cutscenes do not have subtitles or captions. |
Closed captions |
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Mute on focus lost |
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Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
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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]
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- Insert the (first) disc into your optical disc drive.
- Open the CD as a folder.
- Open the Install folder and run
SETUP32.EXE . When the 32-bit Autorun menu pops up, select "Install/Uninstall".
- If the 32-bit Autorun menu does not work for whatever reason, then try using 7-Zip.
- Open the 7-Zip File Manager and navigate to the game CD's Install folder through 7-Zip.
- Run
_SETUP.EXE (note the underscore) through 7-Zip (see Notes below).
- Install the game as normal.
- At some point, you will be prompted to install QuickTime for Windows 2.1.2, which is required to run the game (modern versions of QuickTime won't work). When it asks you to check for existing versions of QuickTime, click "Skip" and continue installing as normal (you'll want to skip version checking as the QuickTime installer can crash while going though your files, which will cause the game's installer to abort installation).
- You can now run the game though either the
SETUP32.EXE Autorun menu or by going to the game's installation folder and running TIME32.EXE .
Notes
- This fix method was done using the 1999 (Great Chase Through Time) release of the game. There may be differences with the original 1997 (Where in Time) release.
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_SETUP32.EXE does not work when opened normally through Windows Explorer, as the installer will bring up a severe error that says, "This product does not support Windows NT." This is oddly bypassed when it's opened from 7-Zip or using the normal Autorun menu.
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Black screens and graphical glitches
Use a DirectDraw wrapper[1]
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- Stabilizes gameplay and fixes severe graphical glitches.
- Cutscenes and quicktime movies only show a single frame, movie audio is unaffected.
- Download the DirectDrawCompat wrapper.
- Extract the contents from the
.zip file into the game's installation folder.
- Run the game.
Notes
- If using G-SYNC and the game only shows a black screen, G-SYNC must be disabled (either globally or manually)
- If the the cursor disappears, clear DPI compatibility settings.
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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 | | |
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Mac OS (Classic) | | | |
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System requirements
Windows |
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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 |
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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
References