Nimmo’s Pond is a very frustrating, time consuming game until you get the hang of things. The goal of Nimmo’s Pond is to avoid lily pads by either shooting them or ducking out of the way. To advance to the next level, you must eliminate all the lily pads.
If you’re after the avatar, your goal is to reach 4,000 points. Now, this might seem impossible after your first play-through, but don’t you worry! With this guide, and some practice, you’ll be surpassing 4,000 points in Nimmo’s Pond in no time and maybe even adding a new trophy to your cabinet!

How to Play

Your controls consist of the up, left, and right arrow keys, your space bar, your B key, and your V key.

• Arrow Keys: For the sake of getting the avatar (and not ripping all your hair out in frustration) pretend that you don’t have an up arrow key. All this will do is launch you into motion and keep you in motion. You cannot slow down with the down arrow key, and you cannot come to a stop. You can be stationary to get yourself that avatar so save yourself the grief if that up arrow key. Focus, instead, on your left and right keys. These keys will rotate your Nimmo so you can aim and shoot with ease, no up arrow needed!
• Space Bar: Be ready to abuse this. This, my friends, is how you shoot and the only thing keeping those pesky lily pads from crashing into you. The faster you click, the faster your ammo comes out which will be necessary as the game progresses.
• The B Key: B is for bomb! No, really, it is. When you use this key, it will trigger an explosion that will eliminate any lily pad closest to your Nimmo. That being said, keep these under a tight lock and key and only use them in emergencies! You can only hold three at a time!
• The V key: This is how you catch your power ups! Your Nimmo’s tongue extends and, gulp! You’ve consumed a new power up! However the power up orb must be close by to collect, your Nimmo’s tongue can only reach so far. We’ll get more into those in the next section to get you more familiar to what helps and what doesn’t.
• Important Reminders: The world is edge-less and wraps around. While the lily pads look like they’re flowing off screen, they reappear on the other side. Think of a treadmill, except on all four sides. And please, I cannot stress this enough; do not use your up arrow key! I don’t care how badly you want that power up!

 

Once you hit zero Health Points or you run out of Paddle Power, the game is over.

You lose Health by being hit by a stray lily pad; the larger lilys’ doing more damage than the smaller. Health can be regained in the form of a power up, which we will cover in the next section.
Paddle Power is used when you move forward or rotate your Nimmo. You can collect power ups for Paddle Power, however it’s not necessary. **Paddle Power restores over time as your Nimmo sits still.
Your shot depends on what power up you’ve obtained, and how many you’ve obtained of them. We’ll go over this in the Power Up section, promise!

Lily Pads

This section won’t be too large, because it’s pretty self explanatory. Lily pads come in three different sizes; Large, Medium, and Small. The trick to the lily pads is (in later levels) to go after the ones that move quicker and/or moving towards you. Once those are out of the way, take down the others. Just remember that the large lily pads break down into medium, then small.
Each lily pad is valued at 10pts, so you’re looking at getting to around level 26+ to get this avatar.

Power Ups

Now that we’ve gotten the explanation of game play down, let’s go over power ups. Which ones are good, which are bad, and what, exactly, they stand for. Remember that this is all based on my opinion so if you feel that the power up I recommend is just not working for you, by all means try another!

Health:
Health power ups, obviously, increase your health. Do not collect them, however, if you have full health, as this would be a waste of a power up you might need later.

 Paddle Power:
Paddle Power power ups, obviously, increase your paddle power. This is not a very necessary power up, but good if you panic about your paddle power being a bit low; not that it ever really should. However if bouncing about power ups bother you whilst playing, feel free to collect it to get it out of the way!

Bomb:
The Bomb power ups replace any used bombs throughout your game. Remember how earlier I said not to use your B key unless absolutely necessary? This still applies! Even though you might luck out and get a power up, it’s still better to be safe than sorry. Also, just like health, do not collect this unless you’re low. (Or, you know, you’ve used at least one) Bombs do not stack, there are only three slots and if you collect one with a full set, you will have wasted this power up.

Slow Down:
You shouldn’t need this if you’ve been following this guide. This, basically, is the only way to put on the breaks. If you’ve been staying still and avoiding that awful up button, there’s no need to collect this power up. However if it’s bouncing around and distracting you, there’s no harm in collecting it.

Ammo

Green:
Green is your basic shot that you start off with. It’s a good start, and fairly useful. It’s not the best when powered up to 5, but if you prefer the faster shot this is perfect for you! At the 5th power up, it shoots three rows. It’s not my favorite, but a lot of people prefer this over the other two.  (From my experience green seem to be more difficult to collect, as they’re not as abundant as the other ammo/shots and it’s important to strengthen your ammo as quickly as you can to handle later levels.)

Yellow:
This is it. This is, in my opinion, how you will get your avatar and your high score. Starting off, it shoots out three rows at a time. As you increase it, instead of increasing rows, it increases the spread of fire. The downside is the gaps in the firing, but if you get down your movements with your arrow keys this shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re not a fan of the gaps, stick with the green! (*Note; some recommend that, if you want a happy medium between green/yellow, stick with yellow on power up three. That way there’s not such a large spread.)

Orange:
Orange, red; whatever you want to call it; it is all bad. Avoid this at all costs. Not only is the range poor but it’s just… trust me, this is probably the worst shot you can have and, especially late game, will be an end game for you.

**Important Ammo Note: If you’ve leveled up your green shot, then snag a yellow, your yellow will begin at level one. So once you decide on an ammo, stick to it! You don’t want to have a weak shot in later levels!

Nimmo’s Pond Cheats

There aren’t any key phrases to enter during the game (Unlike other popular games like Ice Cream Machine or Carnival of Terror) to give you any boosts; however there are some key tips I’ve collected from other Avatar Collectors!

• Do not move your lily pad from the center of the screen. I still cannot stress this enough! It’s hard to keep control of your lily pad while trying to shoot and avoid the other ones, especially late game.
• If you end up using a bomb, or loosing some health before level three, I recommend ending game and starting over. Like I’ve said before, try to keep your bombs for emergencies only.
• Once you’ve decided on your green or yellow ammo, stick to it. Switching ammo later in the game can make it almost impossible to beat, or take a heavy tole on your health bar that you might not be able to recover from.
• There is no pause in this game. So if you’re feeling frustrated or your hand is cramping up from multiple attempts, shoot down all the fast moving lily pads and the ones heading your direction. Once you’re out of danger (for the time being) crack your wrists, take a deep breath and whisper under your breath like a crazy person, I can do this!
• Don’t get flustered with your first few attempts. Some people are just naturally good at some games while others, it takes practice. If it takes a while that’s okay! Just take your time till you get it down. I went from getting 200 points to 2300 points in a few runs.

 

Once you’ve gotten some practice runs in and gotten adjusted to the controls, go for that avatar! You should be able to get it in no time. It is a little more time consuming than some, but not nearly as difficult as others. Good luck!