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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