Imogen

Imogen is a computer game released in 1986 for the BBC Micro. It was written by Michael St Aubyn and published by Micro Power. It was reissued in 1988 and converted for the Acorn Electron. In 2019 the game was converted for 8bit Atari by Fandal, HardCore and Lukas Bezdek.

The game occupies whole disk D of the magazine. It requires 64 KiB RAM, 1 joystick and at least Start, Select and Option keys (so it is XE Game System compatible). To run the game, boot disk D without Basic.

Imogen is a platform game featuring puzzles. The player takes the role of a wizard named Imogen who lost his mind and forgot his identity as a result of transforming himself into a dragon to save his town from another dragon.

He is placed into a dungeon within a mountain and in order to escape he must use magic and puzzle-solving abilities. The upshot is that he will only be able to free himself once he is back to his old, sane self and no longer a danger to the townsfolk.

Imogen himself is able to transform into three different forms, each with an ability unavailable to the other two:

• His natural form as a human wizard, which can use various objects he picks up along the way (which are as varied as a revolver, watering can and tulip bulb.)
• A cat, which can leap long distances.
• A monkey, which can climb ropes.

Each level (consisting of a sealed cavern four screens in size) requires transforming back and forth between the forms to complete it. While it is impossible for the player to actually die during the game, the number of transformations is limited to 150, and using them all before the game is complete renders it unwinnable.

Game controls:

• Joystick = movements of characters
• Select / Option = move in menu
• Start = activate menu item
• 1 = transform to cat
• 2 = transform to monkey
• 3 = transform to wizard

Information sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imogen_(video_game)
http://8bs.com/elecgame/imogen.htm