Download I.M. Meen

Look at those good children studying and reading! I can’t stand it anymore. I have to do something about it. Something like casting the spell and creating the magic book. Once those nice responsible brats open the book, they will be sucked in, trapped inside the most horrible place they ever seen. Bwahahahahaha....

As you are introduced to this villain, so called I.M. Meen, you realize that you are trapped inside a maze with other kids. But you decide to fight your way out. On the way you will meet various monsters, pets of I.M. Meen and rescue the prisoner. You are not alone since I.M. Meen’s servant Gnick decided to betray his evil master and help you and other children.

This game is educational FPS, which is a really rare mixture, especially in those days. You wander around the labyrinth, fighting monsters and collecting weapons. You will encounter doors with scroll drawn on them that holds the imprisoned child. This is where educational part comes into play. Every door is actually a letter with incorrect punctuations that you have to correct. Successful correction will result in freeing the prisoner.

At the start of the game you get to choose between boy and girl. Also, you get to choose level of difficulty for game action and educational part separately, which very nice feature. You can play using keyboard and/or mouse. Use arrow keys to move and space for fire. If using mouse, you’ll move a pointer across the main action screen. Pointer will change into different arrows depending it’s on the position on the action screen. Pressing left mouse-button will result in moving or turning in the direction arrow is showing. Right mouse-button is reserved for actions like fire, open door and picking up objects.
This is something that should be highlighted, you pick object or use something from environment by pointing and clicking right-button. Once you picked up item, place it in your inventory slot at the right.

Punch is your primal weapon. Considering the looks of enemies, it seems that your punch is very strong. First opponents are giant spiders that are destroyed with single blow. Later enemies may take more than single hit, so you will either have to run into them and hit them few times fast, or use “hit-and-run” tactics. There is no strafe moving for example, which may be taken as drawback or simplifying the game. Game is not very hard for adults and moving and fighting is rather simple, since this is game for kids. Animations look like cartoons. Enemies are supposed to be scary, but are adapted for the eyes of children.

Under the main screen there are some buttons. I.M. Meen’s face is for general options, map can be also seen by pressing “tab” button and hand is for using items. Click on item when you found one or one in the inventory, drag it to the hand and click again. If the item is potion or something, you will instantly use it. If it is weapon of some sort, you will hold it and use it with fire. The view of your character in the upper-right shows how he feels.

There are few kids on every level. Reading the letters is not just about punctuations but may also tell you about secret passages on the level. In one cell you will find key besides the imprisoned child. This key will unlock the door for moving onto next level.

However, this is not very good game. Both labyrinth surroundings and reading tasks become repetitive after a while. There should be much more different enemies. Every here and there I.M. Meen will appear to tell you that you won’t make it, but this doesn’t help a lot. You may think that children won’t find this game repetitive, but it is questionable how young children can be to play this game. This is FPS after all. Music really does make you feel like you’re in the scary cartoon, but also becomes repetitive.

Average mark is fair deal since game is worth playing and definitely worth seeing, since drawings are very nice. Still, game needs much more variety. Recommended for ordinary school children.

Works in Win XP without sound. Use DOSBox for full show.