A Sunny Day On The Pond

So what is Nimmo’s Pond? You play as a Nimmo, oddly enough, and he casually basks in the sun on a lily pad in his pond. But wait, there’s more. Our poor Nimmo is unable to enjoy his sunny day in the pond due to one massive problem, the other moving lily pads! These lily pads sadly do not have their own Nimmo to lay on them and keep them busy so in their jealousy they harass and bully our Nimmo by crashing into him in an attempt to knock him off!

No need to worry though as our Nimmo can and WILL fight back against those dastardly lilypads. There is a reason he favours this particular lily pad so much, it fires bullets! Pretty nifty right?

So let me start by saying this one very important tip DO NOT under ANY circumstances press the ‘up’ button to move the lily pad. Just do not touch it, EVER. All you need to do is spin on the spot, but be careful! Keep an eye on your paddle power when spinning or our poor Nimmo will fall into the water and that is game over! ‘But why can’t I move? Surely I need to dodge the lily pads?!’ I hear you say, well no no no. Do not move. It is far better to take a little hit on health (if you don’t activate a bomb in time, more about those in a minute) than move out of the way and be drifting around the screen continuously. Once you move you do not stop.

That very important piece of advice out of the way I will move onto basics of how we are going to fight these lily pads. Your space bar will activate the bullets, sadly you can’t hold it down so you might need some practice. Unfortunately mashing it continuously for minutes on end can hurt to begin with (repetitive strain injury anyone?).

So stay in one spot, spin left and right and mash that space bar like your life depends on it. Also don’t forget you can collect power ups with your tongue (the ‘V’ key) and explode bombs (the ‘b’ key), again, more about the bombs in a minute.

Now let’s talk power ups, when a lily pad breaks down after being successfully targeted by our Nimmo sometimes a power up pops out! These float around the screen ready and waiting for you to collect them. Some of these power ups are absolutely fantastic and some, not so much. Let’s make a handy list, I love a handy list.

-Yellow star aka Multiple-Shot - you NEED this! It shoots multiple bullets (if you didn’t figure that out already) and you can collect one after the other to increase your range. You are never getting far without collecting these.

-Green star aka Rapid Fire - only collect these if you have not already collected a Multiple-Shot power up, not that these aren’t good, they’re just not THAT good.

-Health - this is a red cross, and pretty self explanatory. Very very important in later levels if you want to go the distance.

-Bomb - the larger and darker round one, not to be confused with the utterly useless one I will describe next. Bombs are fantastic for bailing us out of sticky situations.

-‘Super bullets’ - heh. Small round orange/brown circle. There is absolutely nothing super about these, nothing. It fires in such a way that it is impossible to hit anything far away, or very close by. Avoid these at all costs they are just the worst.

-Paddle power - In my mind I see a turtle shell, anyway you probably won’t need these but you can collect them anyway to clear up the screen of clutter if nothing else.

-Speed reset - sort of looks like a battery, we will not need this at all as we don’t plan on moving from our cozy little spot in the middle of the screen. Again you can collect these to clear up the screen and make things tidier. Basically it brings your lily pad to a halt again.

-‘Variable’ power ups - these are ones that could be any of the above but they periodically change, so be careful. You don’t want to try picking up a Multiple-Shot only to find it changes to something else a split second before! I tend to avoid these because I do not trust them at all.

When collecting your power ups it is best to wait until you have nearly cleared the level, leave one tiny lily pad floating around and use this ‘downtime’ to collect anything useful you may need, but be VERY careful you do not accidentally pick up a useless one that happens to float by at the same time! Nothing is worse than having x4 multiple bullets and going to pick up some health only to find a ‘super bullet’ was just behind you and ended up getting collected too. That can really ruin a beautiful day in the sunshine.

The day on the pond does start out beautiful, but believe me those lily pads are ruthless. As the levels progress you will notice the lily pads get faster and faster as their rage gets the better of them. This is where those all important bombs come in! At the start of each level try to have at least 1 (you can only hold 3) and you may need to activate it pretty quick to avoid being hit! Just watch out for the smaller lily pads that explode out of the ones you have bombed as they may bump into you pretty much instantly.

In all levels, but particularly the later ones when things get really hairy, it is a good idea to be shooting before the level even begins. Just pound the hell out of that space bar and try to aim straight towards the faster lily pads before they find you.

Now I haven’t forgotten about the avatar, you need 4000 points to earn it, which is very do-able with some practice! I promise Nimmo’s pond is an addictive and fun game to play and one with a pretty cool trophy too! Try it on reset day to add it to your collection!

Remember these tips!

-DO NOT move forwards!

-If you get hit on level 1 or 2, restart.

-If you haven’t been able to spawn a Multiple-Shot by level 5, restart.

-Start shooting as soon as you can.