I. M. Meen - Fast Facts

The following are a bunch of miscellaneous facts relating to I. M. Meen that are not noteworthy enough to get their own page. Consider this page a crash course of useless magic labyrinth information!

Fact Links:

Developer Credit In Game Data -- Early Gnorris Art -- Gned And Gnorbert(?) Were Here -- Grammar Errors (yes, really) -- Inaccessible Areas -- Liquid Courage -- Lost Goblins -- Lost Laboratory Secret -- Reused Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam Death Effect -- Sega CD Hoax -- The Writewell Softlock

Developer Credit In Game Data

There's a long list of object/sound names, debug strings, and file paths at the end of the game's executable file, IMMEEN.exe. In the middle of this list are some credits from one of the game's programmers, hidden at hex address 70CCF:

Interestingly, this comment states that I.M. Meen's engine was in development since (at least) September 1993, soon after TFoE and TWoG were completed. It makes one wonder if prototyping of some sort was done on the CD-i...

Early Gnorris Art

Alongside the early concept art for I. M. Meen was concept art for Gnorris, which can be seen below:

It's rather close to Gnorris' finalized design, with the only real difference being a change in his palette. Much like the I. M. Meen concept art, I had to approximate its original .PNG/.BMP/.GIF appearance from a 2x .JPG. If you know where the original artwork came from, let me know!

This artwork of Gnorris would actually make it to I. M. Meen's final release. It appears in the "Gnorris Gnotes" packaged with the big box version of the game, though the Crystal Orb was removed and Gnorris was reduced to purple shadows.

Gned And Gnorbert(?) Were Here

There are multiple unused wall, ceiling, and floor textures in I. M. Meen. Most of them are area-specific variants of certain wall "types", such as the Catacombs' door borders and the Dungeon's wall tiles. However, there are two unused textures that merit some discussion, and they both involve the gnomes that constructed the magic labyrinth and were turned into evil monsters by I. M. Meen.

The first texture is an unused wall meant for the Sewers, and is just a copy of the regular Sewers wall with "GNED WAS HERE" written on it. Gned is one of the most frequently mentioned gnomes in I. M. Meen's scrolls, alongside Gnick and Gnorris. He's portrayed as a klutz who constantly messes up during the magic labyrinth's construction, and is eventually turned into a stone statue that guards a secret area in Level 29. As a result, he's the only named gnome that you encounter apart from Gnorris. It appears that you would've seen his "handiwork" in an area in the Sewers, though whether it was simply decorative or meant to mark a secret area is unknown.

The second texture is an unused floor tile meant for the Laboratory (left). It's a copy of the floor tile seen in the area's first two levels, but with a mysterious brown puddle. A similar floor tile can be found in the Dungeon area (right), near a secret area in Level 5. This floor tile has an orange stain, and a scroll on the same level implies that it's a peanut butter stain left by Gnorbert. It's safe to assume that the Laboratory tile was also meant to mark a secret area, though it's unknown what area it would've marked, where the stain came from, or if Gnorbert even made it.

Grammar Errors (yes, really)

The main purpose of I. M. Meen is to help children improve their grammar, punctuation, and reading comprehension in a fun way. Given how the game is built on these fundamental concepts, you would think that I. M. Meen's text and writing would have flawless grammar and punctuation, with not a single error in sight.

Well...

There are three instances of the game and its supplementary material using incorrect grammar AND punctuation. In order, they are;

Nice work, guys.

Inaccessible Areas

There are three fully-mapped areas in I. M. Meen that the player can never access. All three areas have items and two of them have enemies, meaning the player can never 100% complete these levels.

(Apologies for the rough maps - there is no (proper) map viewer for this game as of writing. The unused areas are highlighted in red.)

The first area is in Level 1, inside the Tower (left). There's an inaccessible hallway in the central maze which contains two Trolls and an Explode-O-Fruit. There are no doors connecting it to the outer hallways.

The second area is in Level 8, inside the Dungeon (center). This is a inaccessible hallway that connects the Winter Wand and Storm Wand rooms - the player would've obtained three Explode-O-Fruits and another Storm Wand from it. This was likely cut for balancing reasons.

The third and final area is in Level 16, inside the Caves (right). It's an inaccessible side-chamber that contains three Lizard Men, two Explode-O-Fruits, and a Power Potion. Of the three unused areas, this one is the most likely to be an unfinished secret area.

Liquid Courage

The main healing item encountered in I. M. Meen is the Power Potion. It's a glass goblet containing a red, sparkling liquid, and it heals 25% of the player's energy. Power Potions are one of the most common items in the game, alongside Explode-O-Fruits.

What do you think the internal filenames for the Power Potion's sprites are? Would you like to hazard a guess?

Why, it's C2H5OHA.cmp and C2H5OHB.cmp. If you don't know your chemistry, C2H5OH is the chemical formula for ethanol... which is the form of alcohol used in the alcohol that people get drunk off of. Obviously, this doesn't mean it IS alcohol as this is a children's game we're dealing with, but I must admit that it makes me worry for Scott and Katie...

Lost Goblins

I. M. Meen was reviewed in the August 1995 issue of Spain's version of CD-ROM Magazine. Interestingly, they chose to use prerelease screenshots of the game, featuring different item icons and enemies in areas they don't appear in. These screenshots are more than likely mockups made to estimate what the final product would look like.

One of these screenshots depicts an enemy that isn't seen in I. M. Meen... at least, not in the flesh.

The enemy has a goblin-like appearance, wears red boots and an earring on its left ear (just like Meen!), and wields a short sword. It appears to be in the middle of an action, though whether it's attacking the player or howling in pain is hard to tell. This design bears a striking resemblance (if not outright the same) to a goblin-like statue seen throughout Meen's labyrinth:

Furthermore, there are two references to a cut "goblin" enemy in that long list of object/sound names mentioned above. It's associated with an attack sound, ES06, which was most likely reused as the Rat Man's death sound. This leftover data is almost certainly meant for the CD-ROM Magazine enemy, unless there was another goblin-like enemy that was cut.

Chill Manor would see the introduction of a proper goblin enemy into the Action Learning series, that being the Viking Goblin.

Lost Laboratory Secret

Much like the above examples, there's an inaccessible area inside the Laboratory in Level 32... at least, that's what was initially thought.
As it turns out, there is a fully-functional switch near the area's entrance that opens it up like a secret. However, it's almost impossible for a regular player to notice as it uses the generic Laboratory wall texture instead of the designated switch texture.

To access the secret area, head to the wall that the map's arrow is pointing towards, and then use it.

There isn't anything super shocking in the secret area; it contains three Explode-O-Fruits and a Power Potion. That's it.

Reused Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam Death Effect

If you've read about the unused Laser Lords font that was reused for Animation Magic's Zelda games, then you've probably thought about their other titles reusing assets. As far as I can tell, they avoided this practice... apart from one instance involving Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam and I. M. Meen.

In Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam, there is a smoke cloud effect that plays after defeating an enemy. This smoke cloud is reused in I. M. Meen when a Spider is defeated.

Sega CD Hoax

This - technically - isn't an official fact, but it's a very funny piece of trivia that should be immortalized.

This is a YouTube Poop by ChokoProductions in which the intro of I. M. Meen was edited to look like an FMV playing through the Sega CD, giving the illusion that it was footage of a scrapped console port. It fooled a good number of people, including the creator of this very fansite. Later on, ChokoProductions would confirm that the video was a mere edit and hoax. So, why even bring this up?

Because for almost a decade, the I. M. Meen Wikipedia page had this hoax featured in its own section. No, I am not pulling your leg. It lasted from October 28th, 2011 (from an anonymous edit, surprise surprise) to March 3rd, 2020, and somehow wasn't immediately deleted after a user added information about it being a confirmed hoax. Awesome!

The Writewell Softlock

The most important weapon in I. M. Meen is Writewell's Book of Better Grammar, which is required to defeat the titular villain. You already have most of the book at the start of the game, but it's missing its cover and can't be used as a weapon. You get that in Level 35, the last Library level before the final fight with I. M. Meen himself. It's an inventory item like the wands and melee weapons, and doesn't replace your bare fists.

Wouldn't it be unfortunate if you could lose the cover for Writewell's Book in this short amount of time? In a game where losing all of your energy resets your inventory?

As you can probably tell, this can happen if you're defeated between obtaining the cover and defeating I. M. Meen. You'll need to reload a save with the cover in your inventory...