Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego

Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? is a multiplatform video game where players have to travel through time to collect clues and the warrants necessary to capture Carmen Sandiego or her henchmen. The goal is to track Carmen's villains through history and arrest them and ultimately arrest Carmen.

Similar to the 1985 game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, the player plays as a secret agent for the Acme Detective Agency, and has to use research books to crack the clues given to them on where the crook went to, and also decode the physical attributes or interests of the crook based on other clues. They must achieve both these objectives in order to secure an arrest warrant, which allows them to identify the person at the end of the case as the crook. The player travels through time and space with a device known within the Carmen Sandiego universe as the Chronoskimmer. The game is time limited, and every action one takes uses up some of that time; the player needs to solve the case within the allotted time in order to be successful. As well as teaching the player about both geography and history it also provides practice with using a research book – the New American Desk Encyclopedia comes with the game for assistance. The people, events, and inventions featured in the game hail from period in history ranging from 400 AD to the 1950s – the past 1500 years of human history. The game also comes with a 28-page instruction manual.

This was the first game in the series to establish that ACME Headquarters is located in San Francisco.