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You suddenly hear the tree frogs croaking and you wonder
if the window was left open. Relax, your precious cool air isn't leaking
out into the hot summer night. You've just started a game of Nimmo's
Pond! Now that you've started, what do you do, and what do you
watch out for?
The Basics:
The goal of Nimmo's pond is to shoot down as many other lily pads as possible
before they run over yours. The basic controls are as follows: left and
right arrow keys to turn your pad, up arrow to move forward, and the space
bar to fire. There are also two other keys you use: B will set off a bomb,
if you have one, and V will lick up a fly, if it is close enough. The
game is over when you run out of health or paddle power.
Moving Around:
Maneuvering with the arrows is a bit tricky. The hard part is not in starting-
the up arrow is easy enough to find. The hard part is in stopping! You
have to do an exact half turn and paddle back the way you came from in
order to counteract your current motion. If you don't get it exactly,
you'll continue drifting. One of the main reasons you'll want to paddle
is to get out of the way of an oncoming lily pad. A basic technique is
to scoot sideways out of the pad's path, then do a half turn, kill your
speed, and start shooting your gun back towards where you were- and where
the lily pad is now.
Another important note about moving around the screen
is the screen borders. If you go off one end of the screen, you will reappear
on the other side. But you won't do this immediately! There is more space
between the sides than you can see, so while you're drifting outside of
the screen you are, in effect, "running blind." This makes the outside
of the screen area a killing ground- for you! Do NOT go off the side of
the screen unless you have a good idea of what is there, and preferably
not at all. Doing a half turn and stopping yourself is much preferable
to go flying out of control, out of sight... and underwater.
The Flies:
There are six types of flies, and you can look at them if you hit the
instructions button instead of play when the Nimmo's Pond window has started.
There are six, each of a different color. A fly is released sometimes
when you shoot a lily pad long enough for it to break into smaller ones.
It'll sometimes "break out" a fly as well. The colors, and their type,
are as follows:
Red- Health Points
Blue- Paddle Power
Dark Purple/Black- Bomb
Green- Rapid fire gun
Yellow- Spread fire gun
Orange- Launcher gun
There is actually a seventh type of fly, as well. It's
a "variable" fly. It starts out one color then shifts to another, going
through most, if not all, of the combinations before it disappears.
Catching one of these flies can be quite an experience.
Nimmo's tongue isn't a good guide as to whether or not you even hit the
V key, much less whether you'll get the fly. I know I've caught my fly
when I hear Nimmo burp. Until then, I just know it vanished when it was
right in front of me and I hit the V. Getting close enough to the fly
to catch it at all is also tricky. They stay in the air for a while, drifting
on a steady path until they finally fade out. Intercepting it is a judgment
call as to whether to catch it now or catch it later. It's often best
to actually head away from where the fly is now and catch it when it runs
off the screen and comes in from the other side. It'll normally do this
about two or three times before it fades out. The major trap is to get
so enthusiastic about catching the fly that you speed up way too fast,
lose control, and wind up hitting lily pads because you weren't watching
where they were at! I often let flies go because I don't need them or
because I figure it's too hard to catch them
As to each of the fly types and what they do:
Red (Health)
This fly increases your health. If you already have full health, don't
even bother chasing it. It won't help you, and you'll probably wind up
hitting a pad and being worse off than before. Hitting the smallest lily
pad will reduce your health by a very small point. Hitting one of the
biggest ones takes a lot off. If you hit two of the biggest sizes, and
a medium sized one, you'll sink. That's about all you can take.
Blue (Paddle Power)
This one increases your paddle power. Like health, running out of paddle
power will kill you. Unlike health, you can increase your paddle power
simply by sitting still and drifting for a while to let it recharge. It's
a good idea, in fact, to let the last small lily pad of a level go for
a while so you can simply sit and regain full paddle power before the
next level. As for chasing a blue fly down... this one can be like the
health one. You have to use paddle power to get it, so it may wind up
a net loss. Don't refuse it, though, if it is headed your way! It may
not help if you're full up on paddle power, but that's not often the case,
and it sure won't hurt.
Dark Purple/Black (Bomb)
You can have up to three bombs at one time. This fly will give you another
one, if you have less than three. (Look at the bottom middle of the screen
to see if you have bombs. They group in a half circle there, looking like
little beehives.) Like the previous two flies, if you're full up it has
no effect. When you release a bomb by hitting the B key, the screen flashes
white and the water around you for some distance is cleared of all the
lily pads. But your supply is limited, so use this for emergencies only!
If a big lily pad is headed your way, that's not an emergency. Just move
out of its path, turn around, and fire. If about three large lily pads
are headed for you from three different directions, that's an emergency.
Wait till they're close, then hit the B key. You'll not only get out of
a tight spot, you'll likely clear most of that level. Note that on higher
levels, the pads move faster and are more of a danger to you, meaning
you'll need those bombs more often. However, once you break a pad up,
the smaller pads won't have that sort of speed. (Beware of not cleaning
them up when you do break up a pad... you may wind up in a pond full of
little pads with no room to go without hitting one.)
The Guns, or the last three flies:
There are three types of gun, and each one can come in several levels.
When you eat a type of fly which gives you a gun, you'll either switch
to that type of gun- at level one- or you'll increase the level of the
current gun you have, if that's the type you swallowed. Note that this
means you should NOT switch guns after the beginning levels! Pick one
you like and stick with it, increasing its level as you go. Trading in
a launcher level three for a rapid fire level one when the screen is full
of hard to kill pads is not a really bright idea.
Green (Rapid)
This is the default gun that you start with. Rapid fire, level one. It
lets you shoot about six or eight little green drops in a straight line
forward. The advantage is that it "draws a path". You not only kill pads
no matter how far or close they are, you can in effect create a barrier
line by continually firing along it to catch them as they come across.
There are two problems, though. The first is that once you have the maximum
number of drops on the screen, you can't release any more until the others
fly off the edge. That means you'll want to shoot sparingly until you're
likely to hit, then release everything you can. The second is that at
long distances, you just can't turn in a small enough angle to cover the
field very well. You'll shoot either to the left of the pad or to the
right, but no matter how hard you try to turn, just one tap on the key
twists you back too far. Level two rapid fire turns the drops into little
stars, and level three gives you two parallel lines of drops. Both of
these increase your effectiveness.
Yellow (Spread)
This is similar to rapid fire, except that the little star-like objects
are yellow and you release them in sets of three. They spread out as they
go farther from you. The advantage is that you can hit objects that you
aren't directly facing, or if you are firing at a large pad you can hit
it three times simultaneously. Another advantage is that, like the rapid
fire, you can hit a pad no matter how close or how far it is. The disadvantage
is that since you release three at once, you can only hit the space bar
two or three times before the screen is full and you're stuck until they
drift off. For me, that is a big disadvantage. I was less than impressed
with it for that reason, and have spent games steadfastly refusing yellow
flies. I've never tried it beyond level one.
Orange (Launcher)
The Launcher releases a straight line of orange fireballs. They drift
up into the air, then come down in the pond. They act like miniature bombs,
releasing ripples of destruction all around them. Shooting your maximum
six or eight at once can create a lot of devastation in a whole area,
rapidly clearing pads. Higher levels make the balls go farther and land
farther away from you. This can be a good weapon. Since it clears an area,
you don't have the aiming problem of rapid fire. The single disadvantage
of it is that it doesn't clear a path between you and your target area.
So, you're either going to have to be close to the pads when you fire,
with a level one gun, or you'll wind up with a level three that lets you
shoot halfway across the screen to hit pads.. but which won't protect
you against that little one that's about to hit your backside. It's a
good way to use a lot of paddle power! You wind up firing at distant pads
and running away from the close ones.
The Kill
When lily pads hit you, you flash red and you hear a collision sound.
Sometimes you don't even have to touch the lily pad- just being too close
to it can trigger the collision routine. Your health is going to go down,
and eventually it'll be gone and you hear the bubble as your pad swirls
down to nothing and goes to the bottom of the pond. Or, maybe you get
too active with the paddles, running away from pads since you have no
bombs, and the same thing happens. The warning flashes and pretty soon
it's gurgle time. Game Over. It's going to happen sooner or later. When
it does, though, you can be comforted by the fact that you get one-fourth
of your score as Neopoints. Got a twelve hundred point score? That's three
hundred points in the kitty! Not a bad reward for what was, after all,
a fun time anyway.
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