I.M. Meen

"Be quick, be smart, beware."

I.M. Meen is a 1995 educational video game by Simon & Schuster Interactive, that runs on MS-DOS. It's goal is to teach players the basic rules of grammar and writing, while offering the player an immerse FPS experience. I.M. Meen was followed by a sequel, Chill Manor in 1996.

Plot
Ignatius Mortimer Meen, an evil librarian and magician, has devised a plan to rid the world of his most hated thing, children. Meen has created a book that when opened sucks the reader inside and transports them into his lair, where he locks them in his dungeon. Gnorris, his henchman, has a change of heart and helps free one of the imprisoned children, in hopes that they can travel through Meen's Labyrinth and free the other children.

Gameplay
IM Meen let's the player choose between two playable characters, a boy and a girl, and has them travel through Meen's Labyrinth, and find all of the trapped children.

The Labyrinth
The game plays in a first person perpsective, with the player having to fight off various enemies, including bosses, using either their bare fists as a close range, or a magic wand for ranged attacks. The player can find and pick up health and upgrade items around the level, that can be stored in the inventory to be used later on. The player must complete a total of 36 levels, spread out in 9 chapters. At the end of each chapter, the player must fight one of Meen's "special creations", a strange powerful monster created by IM Meen in his own likeness.

Scrolls
Upon finding a child locked in a room, the player must fix the grammatical errors in a scroll. The player will be given the type of mistake they're to look for at the top of the screen, and given a number telling them how many mistakes remain. The number of mistakes range between 1 and 10, and each mistake must be fixed in order to save the child. The player must rescue each child in that level to advance to the next one.

Levels
The Tower Levels 1-4, here you must defeat the boss Trollmeen.

Dungeon Levels 5-8, here you must defeat the boss Meenmouth.

Sewer Levels 9-12, here you must defeat the boss Sludgemeen.

Caves Levels 13-16, here you must defeat the boss Batmeen.

Catacombs Levels 17-20, here you must defeat the boss Meenotaur.

Hedgegrow Maze Levels 21-24, here you must defeat the boss Vegemeen.

Castle Levels 25-28, here you must defeat the boss Count Meenula.

Laboratory Levels 29-32, here you must defeat the boss Frankenmeen.

Library Levels 33-36, here you must defeat IM Meen.

Reception & Legacy
IM Meen was followed by a sequel called Chill Manor in 1996, which works similarly to IM Meen but instead teaches history.