Where in Hell is Carmen Santiago?
Broderbund’s Carmen Sandiego educational series was immensely popular in the late 80s and early 90s, enough to eventually earn it a PBS gameshow and an animated television show. Each of the games featured the locale where eponymous criminal and her gang would travel, first starting with the entire world, narrowing it down to the United States and Europe, then broadening it through time and even into outer space. A common joke (or utterance of frustration) for gamers was, “where in hell is Carmen Sandiego?” or “Where would Carmen Sandiego show up next, hell?”. One developer, St. John M. Morrison ™ decided to take that literally for their own parody game, Where in Hell is Carmen Santiago?, where the world/time traveling thief (or rather, a similar but legally distinct facsimile named Carmen Santiago) ends up dying and being sent into the underworld, with you having to track her down. The game was not a retail product, but was instead distributed as shareware, typically through computer shows and other community efforts.
Read more...