Hello, and welcome to our next community playthrough! This time, we will be playing IMAGinE, a not-so-little game created during AdvJam2021. It's about a guy named Bob who is trapped in a painting by an artist, painter, magician and self-proclaimed genius, named Angelo .
Your task is to travel between various paintings, find your girlfriend (who is also trapped in one of the paintings) and escape.

To be honest, this game doesn't have the best or deepest plot ever. But it makes up for it with good music, great visuals, and puzzles.

Since we're talking about the puzzles, let's be clear. It's not an easy game. Some of them can be quite devilish and require a bit of imagination and out of the box thinking.

While the game lacks QoL features like show hotspot or a hint system, the community is here to help you with gentle hints, so you should be able to complete it without getting too frustrated.

That's why I welcome all of you, no matter your skill or experience with point and click games, to play this beautiful hidden gem of a game.

Things: to Do:
- share your thoughts on art and music.
- if you stuck, ask for hints. Try to avoid the walkthrough.
- be helpful to others by providing hints, not full, detailed, step-by-step solutions.
- if you want to comment on puzzles, use the spoiler warnings to not spoil the game for others.
- remamber to save manualy, the game doesn't have an autosave system.

The game is free, and you can download it, or play it in your browser, here:
https://the-argonauts.itch.io/imagine

I will now post my spoiler-free thoughts about the first four screens/paintings that you will encounter early in the game.
I will post more of them in the next few days.

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The first screen is clearly inspired by 'The Last Supper', with a strong street art feel to it. It also looks like the supper was more of a wild party that apparently took place in a prison.
Unfortunately, the music is repetitive and gets annoying pretty quickly, so it's best to move on.





The audio is much better, with smooth aqua tunes. The equally good post impressionist style reminds me of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night"
But it looks like our eight-legged, sea-dwelling friend is less impressed by the scenery than I am. Everyone's an art critic, I guess.





Next, we have black-and-white scratchboard art. I must admit I'm out of my depth here, so I'll ask someone who knows more about art to say more about this piece.





And the last one for today: POOP TOGETHER! Nuff said, except that I really dig the funky music in this screen.

Interesting choice. I'll grab it from the link

I played this for a bit tonight, long enough to see the four paintings in the OP as well as two others (I actually ended up finding the toilet painting last).

The background art is definitely a strong point so far. Even though, as already mentioned, it's likely inspired by Van Gogh, the painterly style of the underwater scene kind of reminds me of Braid. Also I liked the hidden Manny in the sketched street scene.

Despite the game having background music, audio in general feels a bit 'missing'. Not having voices is understandable given it's a game jam entry but perhaps more SFX could have been good to make up for that, especially for UI clicks, etc.

I've also found those four paintings/scenes now plus one more. I think I've stumbled my way through more than figured things out so far!
Is there a spoiler text function on this forum?

I'm here & will get back tomorrow with some thoughts!

Is there a spoiler text function on this forum?

Unfortunately there isn't a spoiler feature yet: https://community.adventuregamehotspot.c...php?tid=61

A work around might be using small text though: some kind of spoiler would go here

Using a less visible text colour that you would then manually highlight is another option but even more messy and unreliable as the board style can be changed in your user profile with the other non AGH branded themes being light ones (plus if you're using a dark mode browser extension that can also break that...)

Started up the game; whimsy ensued.

Hey, the main character's a fellow Bob.

This painter, excuse you, Artist, seems a little weird. I like the octopus.

I've reached the last of the first four paintings. Makes me feel like I'm out of my out of my gourd in the bathroom over at Studio 54.
Pretty good game so far!

And finally, we're here. While I'm not particularly fond of the neoplastic art style, I think the music here is the best in the entire game. I also like the puzzles, which are the first real challenge in the game.
Did you successfully traverse this painting?
Which painting is your favourite so far?

It’s great to finally be part of a community playthrough. I downloaded and installed the game last night, and I’m now up to the same section as Joe. Here are my thoughts on IMAGinE so far:

Right off the bat, they use situational comedy when Bob first meets the artist. Nothing mind-blowing, just a nice serviceable start to initially draw you in with humour.

The game is much better than I expected it to be. It’s all the little touches that I most admire. For example, in the real world you just have a regular paintbrush in your inventory. In the painting dimension that same item gets transformed into a rainbow-coloured magic brush.

When you enter the square-shaped Black & white painting, it still maintains that same aspect ratio consistently. That’s the kind of polished design I like experiencing in games. Side note: It reminds me of the art style of etchings.

All of the music wonderfully matches every scene so far. The only exception being the banquet hall with its weird mixture of gospel vocals and electric guitar. I didn’t like that music as much as the others.

An appreciative nod to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” book is referenced with “Thanks For All The Fish” on the side of the tablecloth.

The underwater scene is my favourite so far. It filled me with a sense of tranquillity, both as a result of the visuals and the calming musical score.

The gameplay mechanics for the pipe level is an unanticipated bit of fun.

Good quality point & click adventure for something made entirely within the space of 2 weeks for a game jam.

When you enter the square-shaped Black & white painting, it still maintains that same aspect ratio consistently. That’s the kind of polished design I like experiencing in games. Side note: It reminds me of the art style of etchings.

All of the music wonderfully matches every scene so far. The only exception being the banquet hall with its weird mixture of gospel vocals and electric guitar. I didn’t like that music as much as the others.

I don't know if it's intentional, but I think it's great that the screens contrast with each other in terms of both art style and music. Especially the first three.