Ingress: The Game

[Sared]

Made a post about this a while back, don't know what happened to it.

Ingress, the game.

I just got a beta invite tonight!

So what is it? Ingress is an ARG developed by Niantic Labs that makes furious use (no pun intended) of the Google Maps API.

Every player has a power reserve of 'exotic matter' (or XM) that they collect by moving around on the map. (Meaning, you have to get up off your ass and out of the house.) XM is statically spawned on the map (always within walking distance), and cannot be traded. Instead, XM can be collected by moving within 50 meters of it, and then expended on portals.

Portals are locations that seem to be intentionally placed near municipal areas. The trailer suggests that they would primarily be sight-seeing spots or public sculptures. From a quick lap around town I was able to find three within just a few minutes of my house: one at the local library, and two at fire stations. By expending XM, these portals can be 'hacked' to put them under your faction's control, and then reinforced with upgrades to better their defenses, as well as you/your faction's score. Enemy players can expend XM to try and hack the portal back, to to 'fire' at your portal to try and weaken it. When portals are captured, you gain action points which appear to be the closest thing to XP in this game.

There is obviously a larger meta-game at work, but the core concept is pretty simple. The two factions are generic enough, the Enlightened and the Resistance (I chose Enlightened for the beta), and the game has an in-client chat that can view messages from faction/all in your local area (20km), region (200km), and globally.

Now, obviously, this is meant to help bring people together as well as engage them, but I doubt I'll have any of that kind of gameplay at three in the goddamn morning driving around in my small town, but I can see what they are aiming for.

The game is currently in closed beta, and only for Android. There may be future developments planned for iPhone as well but I haven't found any news regarding such. This is also the first augmented reality game that I've played with the latest generation of tech and I really like what I'm seeing so far, even if the implications creep my shit out hard.

Extra credit: this is another app by the same developer. Notice any similarities?


(The game is STILL in beta and invites WILL be handed out to the current playerbase+new players in the immediate future. Twitter was able to confirm as much for me.)

[Sared]

tl; dr: it's the hacking minigame from MxO but IRL

[Da6onet]

Was an anomaly event in dc yesterday and it was loads of fun kicking frog ass. Old thread, but yeah I've been ingressing pretty hard the past three weeks, hard to explain.

[Akiya]

Strangely enough, my little sister JUST got me started on this. Interesting, but I live in the middle of nowhere, so driving places to hack portals--unless we have plans to go places--is a bit of a gas guzzler at the moment. Luckily there are several portals in my little sticks town, so it works for now

[Da6onet]

Yeah when I visited my inlaws their tiny midwest town (pop. 100) had two portals. After my submissions, they now have 14 

[Sared]

Anomaly event? Do tell more! I haven't been playing much what with work and all.

[Longboard]

I need a version for the iphone!

[Revalis]

Why does it need full access to my Google account? O_o

[Sared]

To track your every goddamn movement, what else?

[Da6onet]

it's hard to explain what the anomalies are, they're rp events that have more backstory than I care to read. I'm just a passive/defensive ingresser; I get portals because I happen to be there (going to get groceries, hardware store, etc), not the other way around. That said, the game introduces you to a lot of things of interest in your area or places you visit that you may otherwise not ever notice, and you get to meet a crap ton of people (if you choose to). That said, being friends with two enlightened players does mean they know when I'm not around, one of them boomed my home portals while I was at the other's daughter's birthday party.

here's the most recent chain of anomalies.

[Mharz]

Thread necro FTW!

So during my annual cleaning of my email boxes I found my invite to the beta for this game and after a little Googling, I picked it up and ran with it a little.

Its billed as an ARG with lots of secrets and little side stories but really I think it's something much more sinister.  *cue up x-files theme*  So there's this game, that tracks where you go and gives you points for performing certain actions at those points.  What determines where these points are?  What if a point was influenced by a company that is located nearby?  What if this company paid into the game to get a point near their shop when they had a great sale?

I'm looking for the words but it's nearly the human analog to SEO.  Except you're not pushing internet users towards a website, you're pushing humans towards a real world destination.  And oh by the way if there's a coffee shop there or a restaurant or a store that has something you might like... well you get the idea.

All that said, I'm playing and I sorta dig it.

For the RESISTANCE!!

[Sared]

I was skeptical and was thinking the same thing earlier on, but portals are public and typically some kind of civil works building. Parks, firehouses, statues, museums, that sort of thing. I haven't seen a portal pop up on a Starbucks or McDonalds, yet.

[Mharz]

I was skeptical and was thinking the same thing earlier on, but portals are public and typically some kind of civil works building. Parks, firehouses, statues, museums, that sort of thing. I haven't seen a portal pop up on a Starbucks or McDonalds, yet.

The points where the hackable nodes are located (at least in my area) are very close to a variety of businesses but I don't think any money is being exchanged just yet.

On a total side note, I turned the app on this afternoon while running errands and suddenly my day took on a new little twist playing and doing what I set out to do.  As a total surprise, I found a few new things/places to eat/bars/post office branch playing the game and managed to walk a surprising distance while doing it all.

Tricksie Gooogle bastards made my afternoon of getting errands done fun AND helped me to discover new stuff.

[Okinyo]

Posts: 621

Re: Ingress: The Game

« Reply #12 on: January 02, 2014, 07:44:59 PM »

Quote from: Sared on January 02, 2014, 12:43:28 AM

I was skeptical and was thinking the same thing earlier on, but portals are public and typically some kind of civil works building. Parks, firehouses, statues, museums, that sort of thing. I haven't seen a portal pop up on a Starbucks or McDonalds, yet


I still have my reservations but I decided to give it a go.

[Mharz]

Reasonably fun in short doses when combined with other social activities so far.  I've yet to meet up and do a team type event.  Anyone have experiences from those that can share?