Ingress

A mysterious energy has been unearthed by a team of scientists in Europe. The origin and purpose of this force is unknown, but some researchers believe it is influencing the way we think. We must control it or it will control us.

So the premise of this idea is Domination style play (my favorite Unreal Tournament game type http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Tournament under 'Game Types'). That is, two teams compete trying to control points on the map. The big kicker here is the map is the real world.

I've played through the tutorial now and have gone for a walk to collect XM (the energy currency in the game), and I enjoy it. I just wish there was more to do (or that I could walk to some control points).

Thoughts so far:

* the tutorial gets you to walk outside which is nice, but makes it very hard to hear what you are supposed to do (bring headphones, or stare close at the screen to read the tiny... Read All


http://debian.mcmillan.net.nz/misc/niantic_cross.jpg
Ingress is an Alternate Reality Game. I first came across this when someone on G+ commented that they "had just gone for a 20 minute walk to hack some Ingress portals before bed", which sounded intriguing so I signed up for the trial.

A couple of days later I checked my inbox and I'd got lucky! I visited the Google Play store to download the game, but couldn't find it. It seems the game is "not available in your country". Go figure. So I googled around and managed to find the APK and install it anyway, and it turns out that I live in the one city in my country with a reasonable number of 'portals' that can be 'hacked' and I was on my way.

The objective of Ingress appears... Read All