The ClueFinders

The ClueFinders
The four members of the Cluefinders team: Leslie, Santiago, Owen, and Joni. The inclusion of four races in the main cast has been pointed out by many critics.
Genres	Edutainment
Developers	The Learning Company
Publishers	The Learning Company
Year of inception	January, 1998
First release	The ClueFinders 3rd Grade Adventures: The Mystery of Mathra January, 1998
Latest release	The ClueFinders: Mystery Mansion Arcade 2002

The ClueFinders (also known as ClueFinders) is a series of educational software aimed at children aged eight to twelve. The series was created by The Learning Company as a counterpart to their Reader Rabbit series for older elementary-aged students and features a band of mystery-solving teens. The series has received praise for its balance of education and entertainment and has won numerous awards.

ClueFInders was conceived as a continuation of the Reader Rabbit series, appealing to the older 3rd-6th grade level. The first ClueFinders title, The ClueFinders 3rd Grade Adventures, was released in 1998 and most of the subsequent games were released within the next two years.The ClueFinders' 4th Grade Adventures' was announced on July 13, 1998. Later that year, The Learning Company used Cluefinders' 4th Grade Adventures as the prototype for Internet Applet technology that allowed users to download supplementary activities from the Cluefinders website. Six games were released across 1998-1999, while 2000 and 2001 each saw one new ClueFinders game. These releases were followed by noneducational bonus discs.Cluefinders held a writing competition in 2001. Sponsored by The Learning Company, the competition was open to 3rd-6th grade classrooms in the United States. The winning essay - a new adventure for the ClueFinders crew, won an iMac. In 1998, The Learning Company was acquired by Mattel for $3.7 billion, considered one of the worst deals in business history; the following year Mattel sold off their The Learning Company assets to Gores Technology Group. 2000's The ClueFinders 5th Grade Adventures: The Secret of the Living Volcano was the first to include the A.D.A.P.T technology, which allowed teachers and parents to monitor the player's progress and included auto-adjustable levels based on the player's ability. In the year 2000, Mattel Interactive hired professional writers Jill Gorey and Barbara Herndon had designed a concept for a TV series, however, the franchise never made its way to television.

In 2001, Riverdeep acquired many of The Learning Company's properties from Gores Technology Group by selling $40 million in stock. Carmen Sandiego, ClueFinders, and Reader Rabbit were then licensed to the KidsEdge Website in 2002 where they were available to play among 170 games and activities. In 2003, The ClueFinders' Reading Adventures was reconfigured to run on Windows XP. The 2004 RCN InterACTION service allowed parents to stream over 35 games in series such as Carmen Sandiego, Clifford the Big Red Dog and ClueFinders over a broadband connection.Compilations including multiple previously released titles, such as Cluefinders Adventure Pack and Cluefinders Triple Pack' have since been created as well as bundled which includes a single ClueFinders title (often "The ClueFinders Reading Adventures") among other games (mostly other Learning Company games) in series such as "Adventure Workshop" and "After School Clubhouse". In addition, the 3rd till 6th grade titles were re-released on the iOS platform on December 19, 2010. Around this time,LeapFrog Enterprises created three Browser games, which cast different voice actors. As of 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (the successor of Riverdeep) is offering the Cluefinders brand as a licensing opportunity on its website.