Software tennessee

The game was invented in the early 1980s in Japan and won a computer game contest there. Since then, versions have been written for most personal computers. This Macintosh version is completely free, and runs on any Mac under System 6.0.7 or later (finally including Mac OS X). Finally for OS X. See full list on bigfishgames.com.

1. Totally Finished Game (game Jam Version) Mac Os Catalina
2. Totally Finished Game (game Jam Version) Mac Os 11

CALLING ALL TIME PILOTS! Carmen Sandiego has just broken into ACME headquarters, stolen the only time travel device on the planet, and gone on a rampage across history with her gang of crooks. It's up to YOU to stop her!

Reports indicate she was last sighted in the offices of Brøderbund Software circa 1997 stealing over 400 lines of dialogue from the script of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, the 1997 remake/reimagining of the 1989 educational game that made learning fun!... maybe.

Ancillary evidence further shows that Carmen had a go at the game's demo version, removing some truly hideous animations and block paragraphs.

• 3Graphics
• 4Music
• 6Text

Sub-Page

The Case of the Missing Case

While the game's first case (Egypt) is followed directly by the Rome case in-game, internally, Rome is actually the third case. The second case is skipped over in the names of the case files (e.g. Egypt's main resource file is C1ART.MHK, while Rome's is C3ART.MHK). Case 2 simply doesn't exist.

There are almost no traces of the missing case in the game data. The only acknowledgement that it was even planned seems to be this placeholder Chronopedia entry:

It seems to have been cut fairly early in development, as the demo version (dated three months before the final) contains a case timeline that doesn't show anything between the Egypt and Rome cases. Most likely it was scrapped shortly into the process of implementing the game and never actually developed; if it existed, there would be an even 20 cases.

There are a few reasonable inferences to be made regarding its content:

• The case would have taken place sometime between 1490 BCE and 50 BCE.
• The villain would certainly have been Dee Cryption, who appears both in the game's intro and in the jailbreak scene at the start of Disc 2 but isn't in any of the Disc 1 cases.
• The Good Guide would probably have been Polly Tix, who stars in a measly two cases versus four each for the other Guides.

Other than that, it's anyone's guess what it would have involved.

For clarity, this article labels the remainder of the cases according to their internal number, so Rome is Case 3.

Graphics

Case 11: Spain, 1493

Case 13: Aztec Empire, 1519

Case 16: Northwest USA, 1805

Case 18: USA, 1879

Case 19: USSR, 1961

Here's what the capsule background looks like with and without the extra graphic.

Chronopedia

There's also this placeholder graphic for the Aztec Empire map. Apparently someone wasn't quite sure about the name.

Miscellaneous

Music

Theme Song

As a bonus, both game CDs contain identical Redbook audio sectors with a copy of the theme song to the Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? game show that was on the air at the time. This is probably the only official release of the song in any form.

Case 7: China, 1271

The music for the map shown between screens in Case 7 is too long to be heard in full.

Case 11: Spain, 1493

A downbeat, dramatic orchestral piece. It's somewhat similar to the music used after discovering Columbus's crew, so it might have originally been for that.

A short, tense track. It's a little Jaws-like, so maybe it was supposed to play when the shark showed up?

Case 13: Aztec Empire, 1519

This fanfare is almost certainly supposed to play as Buggs Zapper is recaptured, but seems to have been the victim of an audio miscue: the music from the marketplace plays instead.

Case 16: Northwest USA, 1805

As with the China case, the map screen is never shown long enough to hear this track in full.

Case 18: USA, 1879

A short rag. May have been meant as background music for arresting Dee Cryption.

Dialogue: The Short Version

This game has a lot of unused dialogue (in the ballpark of 400 lines!). It's documented in excruciating, nauseating detail on the sub-page, but for those who don't have time to kill, here's the digest.

Each section header links to the corresponding section of the sub-page.

General

• Lots of characters have alternate greetings that they're supposed to say from the third time they're talked to onwards or after meeting specific conditions, but only a handful are ever used.
• Many cut audio files have been partially deleted by silencing the audio, but the subtitles often still remain.
• Almost every case has special dialogue to be played when the Time Cuffs are used before they're active, but it's never heard because trying to do so just plays their inventory description instead.
• A good number of cases have four lines that are meant to play at random when the Good Guide is clicked, but only the first three are ever used.
• Nearly every case contains subtitles and sometimes duplicate dialogue for the conversation between the Good Guide and the villain that plays in the Time Tunnel after the arrest, but they're never used.

• The first Carmen Note piece was originally under the boatman's bag on the Nile bank, but was moved to Hatshepsut's temple.

• The developers planned for it to be possible to use the Time Cuffs on Julius Caesar, but in the finished game this turned out to be impossible.

• The cracked stone used to retrieve the grapes was supposed to be an interactive object named 'Platform', but ended up being plot scenery.
• The developers apparently weren't sure whether they'd let the player leave the shore area without first talking to Leif Eriksson, so they wrote dialogue for both situations.
• Tyrkir the Southerner is actually from Germany.
• The scene where the Vikings reclaim their ship was supposed to feature Leif egging the crew on.
• Baron Grinnit was originally named 'Baron Wasteland', after a character from the WiTiCS game show. His name was changed after the dialogue was recorded, necessitating some hasty cuts (and also causing his full name to appear only in the manual).

• The boat on the byoubu in the Spring House was supposed to be clickable and have its own description, but this got cut for some reason.
• A bug prevents a snippet of dialogue with the Spring House guard from playing.
• It was supposed to be possible to use the Time Cuffs on Murasaki, the guards, and several other objects besides Murasaki's drawers, but the game doesn't allow it.

• Surprisingly, some plot railroading was actually cut from this triple fetch quest.
• A partially deleted line suggests Polly Tix was going to try her hand at falconry.

• Apparently someone on the editing team was averse to oil puns.

• Apparently someone on the editing team was also averse to salt puns.
• It was supposed to be possible to try (and fail) to trade things other than the gold pieces with the salt trader.

• The developers planned to make it possible to try to take Gutenberg's type, but this wound up being impossible because size limitations made it necessary to remove the inventory bar on the printing press subscreen.
• It was supposed to be possible to contaminate the ink, forcing Gutenberg to make a new batch.
• There are two different messages for using the activated Time Cuffs on Gutenberg, which isn't even possible in the first place.

• Ann was supposed to find one of the Carmen Note pieces while counting supplies in the storehouses, but the note's location was changed.
• The counting frame puzzle was originally significantly easier. The quipucamayoc gave a more complete explanation, and failing enough times would cause Ann to give a direct hint on how the numbering system works.

• This case has the most cut dialogue in the game due to substantial rewrites to the ocean voyage portion.
• It was originally possible to try to sail without having the sails fully raised or lowered.
• Rock's messages while at sea originally gave both the direction of travel and whether the last move was due to the wind or the current, but all sixteen of these were cut in favor of messages that give only the direction of travel.
• Rock was originally much more helpful while at sea, offering advice on which way to go and whether to use the wind or the current.
• There were supposed to be storms at sea, but they didn't make the cut.
• The maps in Queen Isabella's room were supposed to be movable objects.

• There's unused dialogue directly pointing out Sir Vile as the villain early on. No case gives the villain away outright until the case is solved, and someone apparently didn't want any exceptions.
• There are several lines of dialogue that were probably supposed to be used as descriptions for the clickable objects in the studio after da Vinci leaves.
• Carmen Sandiego is a 'lady', not a 'dame' (very important).

• The designers almost certainly intended for the player to have to converse with Montezuma before starting the case, but it's not necessary in the finished game. In fact, it's possible to beat the case without ever talking to him!
• As discussed, there was originally a third trading subquest to obtain a gold nugget for the headdress.
• Lots of lines relating to the birds and bird whistles were cut.

• It was supposed to be impossible to rehearse a play whose wall section was already repaired.
• The lines heard as part of the background track while backstage at the Globe have unprocessed versions stored as dialogue.

• Thomas Jefferson knew his (farming) roots. Apparently.
• Thomas Jefferson liked Native American artifacts, but his wife didn't. Apparently.

• As mentioned above, it was possible at one point to trade the Shoshoni for a rattle.
• More dialogue was cut to accommodate Baron Grinnit's name change.

• Renee originally had even more irritating rhymed dialogue.
• It was supposed to be possible to use the Time Cuffs on Beethoven, but in the finished game he leaves before the third note piece can be picked up.

• Some juicy dialogue on filaments and General Electric was cut. Hahahahaha.
• Has anyone ever actually used the word 'yawnola'? Not in the finished version of this game, they haven't.

• Yuri Gagarin liked to say things like 'Poor little Vostok!' when his rocket got sabotaged by the capitalist pigs.
• A completely useless non-hint on finding the Chronoskimmer got cut.

• Every single time period has an unused farewell message from the Good Guide to the case's featured character.

Text

Case 1: Egypt, 1490 BCE

In this game, text for the inventory window's command display ('Put Bag on Boat', 'Travel Down Nile' and the like) is stored in a different format from the main dialogue, and the bulk of the game's unused text occurs there. This particular string is stored between the commands for the dark cave and the burial chamber, so it may have been meant to appear in one of those locations (probably the burial chamber, since it's impossible to leave that area once it's entered).

Case 4: Vinland, 1002

Another unused command bar string. It's probably meant to be associated with the cracked boulder that can be used to retrieve the grapes, but it never shows up.

Case 5: Japan, 1015

Text label for the boat that appears on the byoubu in the Spring House. The boat can't be interacted with, despite having both this label and an unused description.

Some leftovers from copy-and-pasting resources from Case 16 ...

... and some more from Case 4.

Case 7: China, 1271

This placeholder string is scattered throughout the command text 27 times in total.

Case 13: Aztec Empire, 1519

A command string left over from Case 1.

Case 14: England, 1599

Unused command text. This string isn't necessary because 'Inventory' and other strings used in multiple cases (e.g. 'Use X on Y') are baked into the game executable.

A placeholder. It's located directly after the previous string and before the following leftovers, so it's not clear what purpose it served, if any.

Some copy-and-paste leftovers, many shared with Case 5. Apparently this case was based on resources from Case 5, which in turn was based on Case 3 and Case 16.

Case 16: Northwest USA, 1805

Inventory bar text for the removed rattle trade item.

Miscellaneous

These messages are hidden in the 'Data Preparer' field of the primary volume descriptor of the ISO 9660 partition for the first and second discs, respectively. They appear to have been left by Mario Magliocco, who is listed in the credits under 'Special Thanks'.

Additionally, several of the game's QuickTime video files contain normally-unseen metadata listing Scott Aronian, credited for 'Video Post-Production', as their author.

Gameboy Development on Mac OS X

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1

357294As I have gone more and more low-level over the past month, I was searching for a platform that is well understood/documented, not too fancy and thus allows me to use it for learning on different topics at once in a fun way. I.e. micro-processors/electrical-engineering, emulators, dev-tools.

Well, I found the old Gameboy to match that category:

Totally Finished Game (game Jam Version) Mac Os Catalina

• Electrical Engineering: Building own game cartridges/ROMs, ROM-readers/writers and play around with other interfacing possibilities. As it happens, I still have my old Gameboy lying around… somewhere…
• Emulators: Write a simple emulator for the Gameboy’s Z80 processor. Compared to others, the instruction of the Z80 is “quiet” small. Except for the CHIP-8 language, there are not many other processor that are this popular and have an as small instruction set.
• Dev-Tools: Understanding how compiler and linker for this platform work and tinkering with it. As one of the most popular tool-chains (Rednex Gameboy Development System358295) is open-source and a comparably small project, this is hopefully not a month-long endeavor.

And I like doing game-development for fun anyway. With a quiet old and restricted platform like the Gameboy, this is a nice thing to do in with limited time and good results. Building only a simple game for PC or any of the latest Mobile-platforms (iOS, Android) can take month when you also have some sense for art and style. With a four-color 160×144 pixel display, you are so restricted on itself, that doing the graphics yourself is quiet easy; even for someone that is not a great artist. I was surprised what can be achieved on a 14 hour flight. Maybe I will even enter the next Ludum Dare359296 with a Gameboy game.

The first step required to dive into the world of Gameboy development is to set up the development tools, emulator and some more useful tools like tile-editors on your Mac. The main purpose of this post is to describe the steps I have taken. And as it was more then just click-click-finish at some stages, I hope this will also be helpful to others.

RGBDS360297 seems to be a popular set of developer tools for the original Gameboy. It contains four command-line tool for which two are the assembler and the linker. Unfortunately, there is no binary available for Mac OS. Fortunately, it is open source. With minor modifications I was able to compile the tools for Mac OS X Lion. You can find the compiled binaries (rgbds.tar361298) and the Makefile I used in my github repository362299.

Next thing I needed for development was an emulator with an embeded deugger. Who writes a working game with closed eyes, loads it onto a gameboy cartidge and it works? Well, at least not me.

Totally Finished Game (game Jam Version) Mac Os 11

The emulators I found to be the best matches are no$gmb363300 and bgb364301. Both are similar feature wise; bgb seems to have been implemented based on no$gmb, so both interfaces look alike and also shortcuts in the debugger are mostly the same. bgb is still actively developed and you can also get tips by the developer in the EFNet #gbdev IRC channel.

Both emulators are for windows originally and they are not open source. So, using Wine was the only real option. If you don’t have Wine yet installed, you might want to download MacPorts365302. It is a package manager for Mac OS and also allows to easily install said software. As you also need to have the X11 window server installed for Wine to work properly, best is to follow these instructions366303 for the whole installation.

The Installation of wine itself is straightforward: After the installing MacPorts type “sudo port” in the Terminal.app to start the MacPorts package manager. Supply your user’s password and the prompt of the package manager should appear. Type “install wine” and do something else for the next half hour. This will download all dependencies (a lot) and install Wine on your system. I got an error like

while installing Wine because it seemed to interfere with other packages I have already had installed. If you also encounter this problem, follow the workaround at the bottom of this bug-ticket367304:

Once you have installed wine successfully, you can start the emulator. I was not able to get bgb running yet but no$gmb works just fine. Get the 32-bit Windows version from here368305 and start it with “wine NO$GMB.EXE” from the commandline.

As said before, a quiet restricted platform like the Gameboy allows also a developer without a hand for art to create nice games. Still, you might want some tools to assist in the process. The Gameboy Tile Designer369306 and the Gameboy Map Builder370307 are two such tools. Easily generate tiles and maps and directly export them into an assembler-file containing the required data to directly work with the tiles/maps. These tools are again windows-only but work just fine with wine.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, the host for these tools seems to be shutting down its operation completely, so I hope the owner of these tools will find another host soon.

That’s about what you need if you want to get into Gameboy development and have some retro-fun. To point you in the right direction for getting started I can recommend the notes of the Wichita State University’s 2008 Z80 Assembler Programming lecture371308. Luckily, the exact same tools we just installed on our system are used 🙂