I.M. Meen

I.M. Meen
Developer(s)	Animation Magic
Publisher(s)	Simon & Schuster Interactive
Producer(s)	Dale DeSharone Igor Razboff
Designer(s)	Matthew Sughrue
Programmer(s)	Kirill Agheev Dima Barmenkov Misha Chekmarev Linde Dynneson Misha Figurin John O'Brien
Artist(s)	Masha Kolesnikova (character design)
Writer(s)	Matthew Sughrue
Composer(s)	Tony Trippi
Platform(s)	DOS
Genre(s)	Educational game, First Person Shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player

I.M. Meen is an educational video game that runs on MS-DOS, designed to teach grammar to children. In it, players must walk around a labyrinth, rescuing children and defeating monsters. The educational aspect of the game comes in the form of "scrolls", writings of I.M. Meen which the player must correct the grammatical mistakes of in order to rescue the children. The game is made by the Russian-American Animation Magic, the same company that made the CD-i games Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. The voice of I.M. Meen was done by Peter Berkrot.

Plot

Ignatius Mortimer Meen, an evil magician who despises children and learning, creates a magical book that sucks children inside when they read it. The book takes them to a massive labyrinth, where they are found by the guardians and locked into cells. Players play as two children named Scott & Katie who are trapped inside this labyrinth. Gnorris, a gnome that has betrayed I.M. Meen, helps the player escape, giving them a magic orb that allows them to contact him, telling them they must rescue all the other children. He gives the player hints as the game goes on, and warns the player whenever a boss appears.

The player travels across the labyrinth, defeating the monsters and rescuing the children, causing the labyrinth's condition to rapidly deteriorate. They eventually confront I.M Meen himself and defeat him using the Writewell's Book of Better Grammar, which he had stolen and placed in the labyrinth. He swears that he will have his revenge and disappears.

Gameplay

The player goes through 36 levels in the game with nine locations, including a tower, a dungeon, sewers, caves, catacombs, hedgerow mazes, castles, laboratories, and libraries. The player must rescue all the children on each level to get to the next one, which is done by fixing grammar mistakes in various scrolls. In every fourth level, the player must defeat a boss monster, otherwise known as one of I.M. Meen's special pets, as well in order to finish the level and get to a new area. There are items in the labyrinth that can be used to help the player defeat the various monsters that dwell in the labyrinth, as well as help them out in other ways. The player has an Agility Meter, similar to a health meter that when runs out, takes the player back to the beginning of the level and removes all of their items. Near the end of the game, the player must defeat I.M Meen himself, who can only be harmed by the Writewell's Book of Grammar (other weapons have no effect on him at all). Defeating him and solving the last scroll automatically wins the game.

Critical reception

The Contra Costa Times gave the game a positive review, calling it "the first computer game for young children to use the same fast 3-D graphics found in Doom" and praising it for its educational themes. Brad Cook of Allgame thought that the game's graphics and sound were well-executed, and thought that the game was well-developed for its time, but concluded his review by saying, "Since this program set out first and foremost to be an educational product, I'll have to give it a low mark because it simply fails to do that, despite how well-done the rest of it is." Cook gave the game two stars out of five.

Sega CD port

There were plans for a Sega CD port of I. M. Meen, but it was never released. YouTube user ChokoProductions once bought a lot of used Sega CD games, one of which was a plain-looking disc labeled "IM MEEN v1.04 SCD (c) 1995". The disc only contains the company logos and the opening animation. After the opening animation, the disc sends the user to the Sega CD BIOS.

Sequel

A sequel to the game was made, titled Chill Manor, featuring a story about Meen's presumed wife (Ophelia Chill), who obtains the Book of Ages and tears out all the pages, allowing her to re-write history. I. M. Meen appears at the game's ending.

Meme Status

I. M. Meen has become immortalized as an internet meme, often used in YouTube Poops. One of the most popular uses of the game's animated segments is making the title character sing certain songs, such as Take Me Out.