Morphology of
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? is a popular educational computer program from the early to mid-1980's. The point of the game was to teach kids geography and problem solving skills in an entertianing format. The company behind the game, Broderbund Software, had a real hit with this game, spawning a whole series of Carmen Sandiego educational games.
The major reason for the success of the Carmen Sandiego games was that children actually enjoyed playing the game. The child was cast as a detective on the trail of an international thief. By gathering information about where the crook was going, the child could track down the thief and arrest him or her. The child would often have to look up information ina dictionary (i.e. which country uses lira for currency or in which country is Oslo located... the answers are Italy and Norway, in case you're curious). Each case was a little different, so while the format was exactly the same every time, the details were different enough to keep children interested.
The computer game can be easily broken into the following functions: