IMOGEN
■ PUBLISHER: MICRO POWER ■ YEAR: 1986
Micro Power’s Imogen was a classic one‑off that arrived out of nowhere, was unlike anything else and left an indelible mark. Its author, Michael St Aubyn, already had a couple of earlier games published, including Acornsoft’s Volcano, but he wrote Imogen as an example of the sort of game he preferred to play himself: one that required lateral thinking rather than lightning reflexes.
Although it looks like a platform adventure game, and has delightfully well-drawn and whimsical (if slightly flickery) graphics, Imogen is nothing more or less than a visually rich brain-teaser. The puzzles are fancifully humorous, sometimes involve graphical wordplay and are challenging yet fair. As the author himself noted, Imogen’s puzzles were influenced by Looney Tunes’ Road Runner and Edward De Bono (he of ‘lateral thinking’ fame) in roughly equal measure.
Your character is the eponymous wizard; sadly, we never discover why he has a traditionally female name. Imogen’s task is to escape a series of caverns by using his ability to transform into other creatures: a monkey, which can climb; a cat, which can leap; and (in just one level) a bird, which can fly. But Imogen can only change form a limited number of times, and if he runs out of transformations it becomes impossible to escape.