I.M. Meen

This page details pre-release information and/or media for I.M. Meen.

Concept Art#

The August 1994 issue of Interactive Entertainment featured a section dedicated to the games presented at the 1994 Summer CES. One of these games was I.M. Meen, going under the longer title The Magic Labyrinth of I. M. Meen and featuring two pieces of early character concept art.

Concept Art	Final

I.M. Meen had a much more sinister and creepier design at first, donning a full-body robe and having no hair apart from sideburns. This design was scrapped in favor of a more cartoonish one, and his attire was changed to a suit and trousers.

Concept Art	Gnorris Gnotes	Final

Gnorris' concept design, on the other hand, is nearly finalized. The only changes made involved the color palette and his hands, which were changed from four-fingered gloves to five-fingered bare hands. The concept art would be edited and re-used for the "Gnorris Gnotes" included with I.M. Meen's big box release.

The cutscene where Gnorris tells the player about a powerful wand portrays him with four fingers and extra glove-like details. These are not present in the other cutscenes he is in, and may be a leftover from his early design.

Early Screenshots#

Four screenshots of I.M. Meen were shown in a review in the August 1995 issue of Spain's CD-ROM Magazine. Given the identical HUD (note the inventory and static compass needle) as well as the lack of player action, these screenshots are most likely mockups created earlier in development.

The first screenshot has the player encountering Frankenmeen (the boss of the Laboratory area) inside The Catacombs. The floor in the screenshot is similar to the one used in The Catacombs 3, but it's actually a unique tile that appears to have been removed from the final game. This is the largest screenshot and, therefore, provides the clearest view of the early HUD:

Early	Final

• The poles next to the player's status face (used to change the screen size) have colorless finials.
• There is no agility meter on the early HUD.
• The items in the player's inventory have completely different icons. The most likely identities of these items are, in order:

The second screenshot shows the player encountering a Skeleton Warrior and Spider in The Hedgerow Maze, and the third has a similar scene but with Roman Centurions. While Spiders do appear in that level in the final game, Skeleton Warriors and Roman Centurions do not.

Screenshot	In-game decoration

The final screenshot depicts the player fighting a goblin-like enemy that wields a sword and wears red boots and an earring. This enemy doesn't appear in the final game, though a decorative statue bearing a likeness to the enemy is seen throughout the labyrinth. Furthermore, two lists in the executable of I.M. Meen refer to a cut Goblin enemy, potentially this one.