Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego?

Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego?
Developer(s)	Broderbund
Designer(s)	Gene Portwood Lauren Elliott
Programmer(s)	Ken Bull
Series	Carmen Sandiego
Platform(s)	Apple II
Release	1989
Genre(s)	Edutainment

Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego? (nicknamed WINDICS) is a 1989 state-specific Carmen Sandiego spin-off game that only reached the prototype stage. It is arguably the least-known title in the franchise and is one of the rarest video games of all time. The history and geography-based edutainment game is played in first person, and was released for the Apple II platform. It is also the "only Carmen Sandiego game where she's hiding in a specific state". While thousands of units of the school edition were produced and sent to schools around North Dakota, only one retail copy is known to exist (owned by the game's lead designer), and it remained unsold until 2016 when gifted to the National Museum of Play. According to the in-game copyright date and game lead Craig Nansen, the game was released in 1989, marking the 100th anniversary of the state (1889-1989). In fact, the game was released as part of the state's centennial celebrations.

History

Inspiration

The North Dakota Database Committee

Over 20 states in the US have "asked Brøderbund to make state-level [Carmen Sandiego games]", however 19 of the proposals would not come to fruition. The successful anomoly was that of North Dakota. Jimmy Maher of The Digital Antiquarian suggests the game was a "prototype for a proposed series of state-level games that never got any further". In addition to becoming the only licensed state-based game in the franchise, the only Carmen Sandiego game set in a specific state, Mobygames states that "this prototype product was the only one Broderbund attempted".

This North Dakota-specific game was developed by a small team of thirteen educators led by Craig Nansen, collectively known as the North Dakota Database Committee of the Minot Public Schools. The project was completed in 1989 on behalf of the state's Department of Education for North Dakota's centennial celebrations., The Broderbund development team led by Janese Swanson also aided production through making their Carmen Sandiego interface readily available to the team; the game came about through the combined efforts of both parties. The game's inspiration came from educators identifying an opportunity for a game intended to teach North Dakotans about their state's history and geography around 1987. Having observed the popularity of the then-two year old franchise in their schools, North Dakotan teachers began "float[ing] the idea [of] creating a state-specific version".

Development

Nansen saw promise in the idea and contacted Broderbund about the "possibility of creating one". In addition, he "contacted North Dakota's Department of Public Instruction and got them on board, securing a $100,000 grant from the state legislature to help fund the project". Broderbund agreed to create the game, but required local expertise to create the clues; Nansen gathered a committee of educators from around the district (collectively known as North Dakota Database Committee) who had taught North Dakotan topics in the past. The next two years were spent "compiling facts with the help of local school districts across the state". Broderbund gave the team access to the interface and structure of its previous games, and all the data-collection and legwork was completed by Nansen and his fellow educators. While there were restrictions on how much the team could deviate from the Carmen Sandiego template, "local flavor" was added via the inclusion of four-wheel drives for location-based travel, and the change of criminals to "pranksters" due to the addition of "a touch of North Dakota nice". Shortly after development, Nansen proceeded to conduct  "instructional seminars in schools across the state", in which he would encourage teachers to incorporate the game into their curricula, and give them the tools to do so.

Response

North Dakotan project director Craig Nansen explained "Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego? was made by Broderbund...in 1989 funded by a grant...They did it for $100,000 for our state. Other states that approached them after our version was release[d] were quoted millions". The game, described by The Digital Antiquarian as "strangely specific", ended up selling approximately 5,000 copies; mostly to North Dakotan schools and was very popular in that state. Many North Dakotan students would end up spending a considerable amount of their computer lab time playing the game. In one case, the educational game would had an effect on the future career of Zulafly software developer Grant Swenson; he later explained that the game was a part of his memories interacting with computers as a child, due to the carefully-designed packaging, pride-inducing floppy disk switching, and clue-solving with his teacher.

Though the game was "played in North Dakota school classrooms in the '90s...surviving copies are apparently hard to come by." One of the reasons is because as North Dakotan schools started updating their computers, floppy disks (like the ones this game was distributed on) became obsolete. This, coupled with the small number of units produced, led to the title being very rare today. According to historian Frank Cifaldi, who helped rediscover the game, "there's actually no confirmation yet that literally anyone bought a copy"; despite there being a "popular school edition", a single retail copy is known to exist, and its owner is Craig Nelson, the game's lead designer. 96.5TheFox notes "Unfortunately, ‘Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego?’ hasn’t quite made it to the Internet Archive’s Internet Arcade yet, so you may never again have the chance to relive your 90′s dreams of catching the culprit." Cool987FM warned its readers that "it may be difficult for you to find the original floppy disk for this game". The Gamecola podcast described Where in North Dakota? as a "weird old PC game" that could be dug up for family game night. Inforum addressed the game's obscurity by suggesting that even fans of the franchise would be asking the "burning question" of  "Why in the world was Carmen Sandiego in North Dakota?", adding "If you grew up outside North Dakota and have any familiarity with the Carmen Sandiego franchise, the game's existence might be as hard to grasp as Carmen herself." Historian Frank Cifaldi, who helped rediscover the game, described it as "probably the hardest" Carmen Sandiego game due to having "obscure North Dakota history" for which "there is sometimes no reference to on the internet". Kris Kerzman, the writer of an Inforum article about the North Dakotan game's rediscovery in the mid 2010s, deemed it "a fascinating piece of the state's history and video game history."

Rediscovery

Despite sinking off into obscurity, the game was never forgotten and was referred to at various times on web forums and discussions. A sense of nostalgia hangs over games within the shared consciousness such as Carmen Sandiego, and according to Inforum the "growing recognition of classic games as significant cultural artifacts" has led to WiNDiCS gaining "new attention". In 2006, anecdotal evidence suggested a women who works for an edutainment company "still ha[s] a bunch of ol' boxed copies of it for the Apple II". This year also saw the earliest known cache of a Minot Public School webpage about Apple II game emulation, with images of the Carmen Sandiego title. North Dakotan educator and project director Craig Nansen said in 2008: "Broderbund turned over an unprotected version to us when the sales died off. I have that copy, and we have digitized it for emulators.” In January 2015, he explained "We still have copies of the program, but also have been able to get it to run under emulation on current Mac OSX machines...We have a ROM image & can run it on a javascript emulator." In 2012, Jocelyn DeGance Graham, President of CloudNOW recalled WinWiCS' win at the CODiE Awards, noting " It was such a popular product, and I remember later on there were spin-off products, and even one called Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego!". In 2015, a review and Let's Play both were released on YouTube; this along with a Wikipedia article created a renewed interest in the 25-year-old game. The official Carmen Sandiego social media accounts posted statuses about the game in February 2016. According to the review, "The game has been imaged and is available now through the Asimov Apple II FTP site"; Destructoid added "Recently Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego was located and preserved on Asimov's Apple II FTP along with many other obscure edutainment titles." Players either have to use an Apple II emulator, or write onto old floppy disks and play on an Apple II console.

New developments

In January 2015, California-based historian Frank Cifaldi was researching the Carmen Sandiego franchise on Wikipedia and became bemused by the entry on the North Dakotan game, wondering "Why the hell did they make that?". In 2011 he had previously posted to Facebook: "Carmen Sandiego's adventures really hit their peak after she learned time travel, it was all downhill from there. I'm not making this up, the games in order were: World, USA, Europe, Time, North Dakota". After discovering the article, he subsequently tweeted about the game to his 12000 followers and soon began conversing with both Nansen, who had put an emulated version online, and Jarod Rhine-Davis, a Carmen Sandiego enthusiast who had created the Wikipedia article using "scraps of material from the web" and requested further information from Nansen. As Nansen was recently retired, he offered to round up all of the information on the obscure game and make it available. Meanwhile, Cifaldi offered to write an article using the material. Due to the sustained curiosity about the game among his obscure-game enthusiast Twitter followers, Cifaldi visited Nansen in Minot with a film crew "to learn more about it...for a series on screen culture that will stream online". The project is related to a proposed Red Bull TV documentary. Nansen gave some documents to Cifaldi, who wishes to explore the game further in future publications. According to Inforum, "Among the materials Nansen gave Cifaldi was one of only three known surviving versions of the game boxed for retail sale. This version differs from version that was sold to schools and was only sold through the Brøderbund mail-order catalog. It now is on its way to the National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y.". He later posted of Twitter: "Had to fly to ND to get it but I've got a raw rip of a pristine unused retail version, this game is A-A-A-ARCHIVED". Jon-Paul Dyson, the Director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the National Museum of Play, posted a tweet thanking Cifaldi for tracking down a copy of the game and preserving it at the museum. Cifaldi openly encouraged North Dakotan citizens to unearth their copies of the game, due to being "one of the rarest video games ever made". A playable version for the web browser is the new goal, as Cifaldi has "heard from a lot of people who want to play it or even use it in the classroom again". Cifaldi reached the stage of the game where he was able to provide a Carmen Sandiego warrant, but decided that instead of becoming the first person to complete the game since its rediscovery, he would "stop this, reload, and livestream the first time this game gets beaten on the internet". A livestream was created on May 30, 2016. On July 23, 2016, the Apple II-focused KansasFest featured a contest of WiNDiCS. in July 2016, an article about the game's developments was published in Grand Forks Herald, Particle News, Dickinson Press, and Inforum.

The package

Players were given a binder which had a copy of the manual, a North Dakota state almanac, and the game on a double-side floppy disk tucked in the front plastic sleeve. Inside the binder were miscellaneous bits of information such as headshots of Carmen's henchmen, a map of North Dakota, and a page that asks the player to describe the final scene of the game and mail it (to receive a prize). Further pages have a paper version of the almanac, and information about the individual cities included in the game. A teacher's guide is tucked into the back plastic sleeve. A second binder contains activities that correlate to 18 database disks that were included in the package. A North Dakota centennial blue book, and a booklet entitled Governors and First Ladies of North Dakota were included later in this binder.

Gameplay

This is the opening screen of the game.

The game interface is practically identical to the all other Carmen Sandiego games released in the DOS era of the franchise (approximately 1985-1990). Inforum noted that it is "instantly recognizable as a Carmen Sandiego game" due to having the player advance in rank as they catch criminals and follow clues to locations such as International Peace Garden and Cando.

It starts by asking your name, then proceeds to inform you of the next case. Two design changes were made for this specific game: The characters were pranksters instead of criminals, and travel between locations was done by a 4-wheel drive instead of an airplane. Players get promoted through ranks as they catch the pranksters until they have a chance at catching Carmen herself. When they do catch Carmen they receive the Roughrider Award.

External links

• Youtube review
• Let's Play
• Game can be played via this link
• Game link on Asimov site