Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math is a series of five games released in 2011/2012 for the Wii, and is part of the Carmen Sandiego franchise. The style of the games are reminiscent of comic books. The 5-part series were the first English language console games from the Carmen Sandiego franchise since The Secret of the Stolen Drums. These "short, educational detective adventures" were only available as a download through the Nintendo Wii Shop. The games were developed by Gamelion Studios, and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. They could take up to 6 players, and required 600 Wii points. Maths topics included in the games include: Symmetry, Identifying angles, Graphing coordinates on a grid, Logic puzzles, Working with fractions, Solving equations, and Tangrams. The games are designed for elementary learners across grades 3–5.
Production
With the recent release of The Magic School Bus on the DS, this game continued the trend of classic edutainment software being resurfaced. On this new development in the franchise, Bethlam Forsa, EVP Global Product Development for HMH said: "For decades, Carmen Sandiego has remained one of the most beloved, engaging educational institutions – helping students to master key concepts in reading, math, history, and geography. This new slate of games for the Wii, starting with "The Lady Liberty Larceny", will challenge students with fun new stories and characters".
Though the subject is math instead of geography, the gameplay is very reminiscent of the original Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego game. Much like the original games in the series, the game has a light-hearted sense of humour, and many of the characters have "funny, punny names". The game covers maths topics such as geometry, angles, axes, logic puzzles, and fractions, and is aimed at the school curriculum for Grades 4 and 5. The game is "presented as an animated comic book". Locations travelled to include New York City, Shanghai, and Berlin.
Plot
The five games follow a similar plot. Carmen Sandiego and her VILE henchmen stole an item from a location, and The Chief has asked the player to go out and catch the thief. This mystery sees the player "chatting with a variety of colorful game characters in cities around the world".
Gameplay
The aim of the game is to "travel the globe, solve brain-twisting math puzzles, and catch the crook". The game has 3 modes: Story Mode (a single-player playthrough of the game), Practice Mode (playing individual puzzles in single-player), and Multiplayer Mode (completing individual puzzles the fastest against other players). The players use Wii Remote to point at the screen and highlight characters to talk to, or point to the part of the screen the players want the agent to walk to. They can also press and hold the B Trigger at any time in these scenes, at which point the cursor transforms into a hidden object scanner. Each location will provide clues which will reveal where to head to next, and several Hint Coins are also scattered around the environments. After finding three clues, the players can study the dossiers of the V.I.L.E.'s motley crew of criminals and deduce who is the villain.
In these point and click adventures, players solve puzzles in the various environments that they explore, in a system described by Nintendo Life as "much like any of the Professor Layton games". The site adds: "Using your Wii Remote as a pointer, all you need to do is aim at the screen and press A to click on the characters you want to talk to or parts of the puzzles that you want to interact with. The pointer can also be used to find hint coins hidden in the various environments; these give you a little extra help in a puzzle if you need it, much like any Layton game". All the puzzles are related to mathematics. While solving each individual puzzle helps the player to unravel the larger mystery, "the experience points and levelling system are completely arbitrary". Nintendo Life compared the game mechanics to the games featuring Professor Layton.
Critical reception
Nintendo Life said "the Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math series is truly an edutainment series with a whole lot of charm". The site added: "The one intelligent thing about these episodes is the ability to carry your character profile from one game to the next".