Produced by Broderbund Software

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, lived a villain named Carmen Sandiego. Her mission? To steal the rings of Saturn. Or will it be the moons of Jupiter? Or the Moon’s craters? With the help of her V.I.L.E. henchmen, the sky is (literally) the limit in Where In Space Is Carmen Sandiego? and you, as the rookie detective assigned to her case by A.C.M.E, are responsible for tracking her down to her hideout to retrieve the stolen goods.

As per the description above, initially the game appeared to be a solid example of digital literature in terms of an introductory narrative peppered with age-appropriate nods to the film noir genre through the sound effects and graphics, albeit with some cross-over into science fiction given the solar system setting. But after experiencing it again, and mapping the game play on paper, I realised that it was less a story-focused game than a game-focused story (Unsworth, 2006) – the characters do not develop, the plot does not deepen, the choices made by the audience do not have any impact on either element.

That said, as it is recommended for Year 2 and up, I did run it through the VEBB matrix (2025) to ascertain whether there might be any redeeming features that might render it usable as a digital literature resource with a younger cohort. Being text heavy and unable to play a voiceover were seen as major drawbacks, but insofar as engagement and suitability for starting discussion within the classroom, it rated above average despite its length. Strictly speaking, as a web-based game rather than an app the assessment tool should have been of limited use, but its insights were fairly accurate. Matrix Rating: 5/10

As a teaching resource, Where In Space Is Carmen Sandiego has solid curriculum links to the lower years science and digital technologies achievement standards in the Australian Curriculum V9.0 (2024). It can be used effectively in small groups, or individually with students of sufficient literacy, and can run on any device that can run a DOS simulator, without any additional cost. It can be projected to a large screen, though (anecdotally) it is not as effective when used in whole class situations. It could, potentially, be used to support/assess literal reading comprehension and digital literacy in Year 2 or above. Teacher Rating: 6/10

Once again, I tested this as a resource on a Prep student. Being at an emergent stage of literacy, he was limited as to how much he could accomplish independently, but it did cater to an area of interest which held his attention for longer than expected (still not long enough to graduate from being a rookie though!). He responded verbally to animations and my reading aloud of the text much as he would if we were reading aloud from a paper book (‘That is SO COOL’ (about Carmen’s space convertible), ‘What’s going to happen next?’ ‘Why is she doing that?’) Student Rating: 8/10

Whilst not a fantastic example of ‘pure’ digital literature in the same way as an interactive picture book app or ebook might be, Where In Space Is Carmen Sandiego? has sufficient engagement, reading material and interactive features to draw links to it being a game-based story in video game form and thus still falls under the general banner of digital literature. It is usable with the early years in a several different ways, and may be a particularly strong match for students of advanced levels of literacy or with a special interest in space.

Plus, it has endured in popularity through two generations of users. The fact it is still accessible at all when other games such as Spywatch have become lost even to the Wayback Machine is fairly impressive!

Overall Rating: 6.33/10

References

Norwegian Reading Centre – University of Stavanger (2025). VEBB – Educational evaluation of picture book apps for shared dialogue/conversation-based reading. Norwegian Reading Centre – University of Stavanger. https://vebb.uis.no/

Queensland Curriculum Assessment Authority (2024). Digital Technologies Landing Page. Australian Curriculum Version 9.0. https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/p-10/aciq/version-9/learning-areas/p-10-technologies/digital-technologies

Unsworth, L. (2006). E-literature for Children: Enhancing Digital Literacy Learning. Routledge.