I. M. Meen - Shareware Demo

Being a properly-published DOS game that was released in the mid-1990s, I. M. Meen was bound to have a shareware or demo version featuring a small snippet of its gameplay. And it did; a two-level sampler was released around the same time as the full game.

This shareware demo appears to have had two releases; the physical disc version (which you can see images of above) and a digital version that was just the demo's files by themselves. It's unknown how and where the physical sampler was released. The digital version's files were last modified on May 22nd, 1995 (just over two months after the final was built), indicating it was released around late May or June of that year.

In terms of gameplay, the demo is essentially a stripped-down version of the final game with only two levels; Level 1 (The Tower 1) and Level 21 (The Hedgerow Maze 1). Both of these levels are identical to their final counterparts. The engine still treats The Hedgerow Maze 1 as if it was The Tower 2; as such, the Meen taunt cutscenes will use the Tower's BG instead of the Hedgerow Maze's. After beating Level 2, the game ends on a sell screen for the full game (pictured below) before quitting to the DOS prompt.

There are a few copies on eBay of the sampler, but they're overpriced and (obviously) don't even contain the full game. Plus, a couple of shareware discs archived on the Internet Archive had the entirety of the digital shareware demo on them. As such, I present a download link to the free shareware demo of I. M. Meen:

Download the shareware demo here!

The Magic Backrooms of I. M. Meen

I was planning to leave it there when a funny thought entered my mind. What if I saved in the Hedgerow Maze in the demo, then loaded that save in the final game? What would happen?
I got this:

The game loads a bizarre, broken hybrid of both levels, using the assets from The Tower 2 and the layout from The Hedgerow Maze 1. The textures are mostly normal apart from the multitude of non-working buttons strewn about on the walls. The Meenwalls, buttons, and exit door present in the demo level have been replaced with black walls that change graphics depending on if the player is currently attacking. They can't be used in this state.

The map itself is almost completely devoid of objects and items, with only a handful appearing in the furthest reaches of the map which are (mostly) inaccessible. There are two "enemies" stuck at a single frame and cannot interact with the player in any way, as well as a couple of floating Fire Wand projectile frames. Regular doors are now scroll doors and scroll doors are invisible; neither of them work properly.

This map starts lagging like crazy after the three minute mark (if you've set the cycles to 16,000 like I have), likely from all of the errors the game is trying to process. It also affects any items you had in the demo Hedgerow Maze. The Stealth Sneakers heal only a small fraction of health (less than the Power Potion, even) and the Storm/Winter Wands make their firing sound, but never shoot any projectiles.

If you plan to explore these B. K. Rooms, make sure to 1) save outside the initial cell, as you'll be trapped otherwise, and 2) open every hidden area for maximum coverage.