Ingress

[csearle]

Anyone else here play Ingress?

I attended an annual Waze (a satav app) get-together and saw some of my fellow editors glancing at a swirling mist of green (horrible colour) on their phones. I asked them what it was all about thinking that it was some kind of traffic density map or something. Turns out it was an augmented reality game.

Anyway when I got home I started it up (I'm really not into games, although I did write one back in the 80s). Turns out it is quite good fun. The original game apparently had eight levels. These can be achieved pretty much on one's own. After that one's power remain largely the same and progression to the new top level (16) can really only be achieved by interaction with other players. So it becomes much more sociable.

Basically you move about and take "portals" for your own faction, linking them together to progress your score. A triangle of links makes a field, which scores even more points and shrouds the area in a beautiful blue colour. Links will not cross each other.

As a result of this I ended up in Bristol last weekend battling it out against the opposing faction for supremacy. Had a whale of a time and met many people from all over the world.

The game has its upsides and its downsides. These are the ones of which I can think off the top of my head...

Upsides:
It gets you off your rear end and out and about.
One gets to know lots of lesser-known interesting little places (often in one's own town).
You can create do missions (mini tours) that introduce you to the lesser known attractions(?) of a location.
You end up walking a lot more.
After level eight it becomes quite sociable.

Downsides:
It can get quite addictive so one must control oneself.
The time could be used so much more productively.
You have to have an understanding partner (or none like me).

Chris

[csearle]

Our faction made a small (3m 46s) video celebrating this operation (I'm the dodgy looking one far left at 25s).

I like the time-lapse unfolding of the "intel. map" at 2m 23s as the paths are cleared and the fields go in.

Chris