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Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Revision as of 03:27, 15 September 2018 by Thesentrygamer (talk | contribs)
Mohawk
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? / Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? / Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time cover
Developers
Brøderbund
Publishers
1997 - 1999 Brøderbund
1999 - present The Learning Company
Engines
Release dates
Windows 1997
Mac OS (Classic) 1997
Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time on Wikipedia
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? 1985
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? 1986
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (v2.0) 1988
Where in Europe Is Carmen Sandiego? 1988
Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego? 1989
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? 1989
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (Enhanced) 1990
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (Enhanced) 1990
Where in America's Past Is Carmen Sandiego? 1991
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1992
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1993
Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe 1993
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (CD-ROM) 1995
Carmen Sandiego: Junior Detective 1995
Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996) 1996
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996) 1996
Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?/Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase through Time 1997
Carmen Sandiego Word Detective 1997
Carmen Sandiego Math Detective 1998
Carmen Sandiego's ThinkQuick Challenge 1999
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge 2001
Carmen Sandiego Returns 2015

Key points

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
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Windows
Mac OS

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 settings

Game options.
Game options.

Template:Video settings

Input settings

Template:Input settings

Audio settings

Template:Audio settings

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Issues unresolved

Game appears mostly black

An issue when running the game on a modern OS is that scenes in the game show up in black except in areas where some sprite suddenly shows up or moves over the black area, such as a character, subtitles, the cursor, or the Chronopedia. Using Windows Compatibility Mode settings does not fix the problem.

Players will have to get around this by opening the Chronopedia after every scene change, then clicking and dragging the Time Cuffs around the border where the Chronopedia couldn't reach (since the sprite area of the Time Cuffs is bigger than the cursor). Even then, the Time Cuffs are unavailable in the final case. Since it will happen each time the scene changes, this workaround can quickly get very tedious.

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]
  1. Insert the (first) disc into your optical disc drive.
  2. Open the CD as a folder.
  3. Open the Install folder and run SETUP32.EXE. When the 32-bit Autorun menu pops up, select "Install/Uninstall".
    1. If the 32-bit Autorun menu does not work for whatever reason, then try using 7-Zip.
    2. Open the 7-Zip File Manager and navigate to the game CD's Install folder through 7-Zip.
    3. Run _SETUP.EXE (note the underscore) through 7-Zip (see Notes below).
  4. Install the game as normal.
    1. 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).
  5. 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.
_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.

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 to their correct ordered positions, allowing deaf or hard-of-hearing players to complete the case.

Other information

API

ExecutablePPC16-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
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 MB
Video card (GPU) SVGA video card 640x480, 256 colors
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. 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%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References