I.M. Meen

I.M. Meen is a 1995 edutainment first-person shooter video game developed by Animation Magic and published by Simon & Schuster Interactive for mh:awesomegames:MS-DOS. It was designed to teach grammar to children.

Plot
The game's main antagonist is Ignatius Mortimer Meen, a wizard who hates smart children, seeing them as "goodie-goodies". He orders a book which he uses to trap two children named Scott and Katie in a magic labyrinth. Scott and Katie then proceed to fight their way out of the labyrinth, with the help of Gnorris the Gnome, Meen's former minion.

Gameplay
As a player, you play as one of the two new children trapped in the maze. The gameplay is primarily about learning grammar. Your task is to free the other children trapped in this dungeon and find a way out for yourself.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Despite trying to be an educational game to children, it fails to cleverly and practically teach children grammar. The lessons are very basic, spread over sizeable sections of gameplay, and only consisting of correcting Meen's grammatical errors.
 * 2) The game is very repetitive, having four long levels in each "world", with little variety between each level.
 * 3) You have to manually put every item in your hand to use it, instead of just clicking on the item.
 * 4) Meen himself acts rather sucky, which can be a little annoying sometimes.
 * 5) The cutscenes are made by the same studio (Animation Magic, that is) behind the infamous Zelda CD-I games.
 * 6) Whenever you die (or, ahem, "take a nap"), you lose every single item in your inventory. This can be really frustrating in certain situations, since bosses are extremely difficult without ranged attacks.
 * 7) In the second-to-last level, Gnorris suggests for you to find Writewell's Book of Better Grammar, which is a weapon that helps make the final fight much easier, but the only problem is that you've already accessed Writewell's Book of Better Grammar during the "educational" segments, and there's no indication that Writewell's Book is an object you can use outside of the grammar lessons, which might sway the player away from looking for the weapon in the first place.
 * 8) There's secret walls you can pass-through to find special rooms, but there's little hinting towards this strategy, which can really throw the player off, specifically in the level where you actually need to find the secret room in order to complete it.
 * 9) The concept of a crazy old man sucking up over 100 little children into his magic book can be kinda disturbing when looked at a certain way.
 * 10) In the final level, Writewell's Book of Better Grammar is needed to defeat I.M. Meen when he is confronted by the player. If the player fails to obtain the book in the previous level or it I.M. Meen defeats the player, (loosing everything in their inventory as a result) then the game becomes permanently unwinnable.
 * 11) The ending is very odd; after defeating I. M. Meen, you’re directed straight to the end credits, which is incredibly short, and you are directed back to command prompt. You do not even get a "THE END" screen!

Good Qualities

 * 1) The game is a kid friendly fantasy version of Doom or Wolfenstein, which is an interesting take.
 * 2) The scrolls you correct grammar in are actually pretty interesting to read, especially since most of them are written by Meen himself, which gives him an interesting character analysis.
 * 3) You're given access to Writewell's Book of Better Grammar during the scroll segments, which tells you many grammar lessons to take in.
 * 4) The music, gameplay and sprite animations are pretty decent.
 * 5) Despite the cutscenes being made by Animation Magic of all studios, they're actually not too bad to watch. It looks like people actually took the time to animate decent scenes (though the movements can still be a little janky at times).
 * 6) The voice actor for I. M. Meen (Peter Berkrot) does a pretty good job, delivering a tone that feels both expressive and appropriate for the character.

Legacy
I.M. Meen today is basically a source for making funny videos on YouTube, especially YTPs. Using this as a source for education would be lackluster, and it would be better off just going to school. The game also got a sequel called Chill Manor.