INGRESS ©

Ingress is a massively multiplayer online augmented-reality G.P.S.-based mobile game developed by Niantic Labs, where two factions of players - or agents, in Ingress jargon - compete for control over in-game portals located on real-life artificial points of interest such as statues, monuments, artwork, unique business buildings, historic landmarks, aggregation points, places of worship, etc.: a remarkable peculiarity of this game is therefore the need for people to actually go out - that is, walk, drive, travel, etc. - in order to play the game, with known extremely positive effects in terms of fitness, making new friends, visiting and discovering new places, etc.

The other main aim along with capturing portals is linking them to each other in the effort of closing triangles, called control fields, to which a score is assigned based on the estimated population enclosed, measured in M.U., Mind Units.

Scores of control fields for each faction are stacked at both regional level and worldwide level so as to keep a running tally to see which faction is currently dominating.

A Google account is required.

There's an intricate, deep and enthralling sci-fi/spy plot behind the game dynamics themselves, involving a number of fictional characters portrayed by professional actors; the story is narrated via Ingress official YouTube channel, books and those characters' Google+ profiles: examples of prominent characters are Hank Johnson, Devra Bogdanovic, Klue S. and Susanna Moyer.

Basically, experiments at C.E.R.N. in 2012 revealed the existance of a new form of matter (eXotic Matter, X.M.), still pretty unknown. The structure of such matter also seems to carry some kind of information.

X.M. is injected into our world through portals by alien entities called Shapers: over the course of human history, when passing through or by portals, human beings received influence from X.M. resulting in their mind capabilities, creativity and genius being expanded, often leading them into building something in those locations.

Upon starting the game for the first time, the player is presented with the faction choice:

• the Enlightened (playfully nicknamed frogs) consider X.M. useful and seek to harness it for progress and evolution;

• the Resistance (playfully nicknamed smurfs) consider X.M. dangerous and seek to isolate human beings from it.

Enlightened logo	Resistance logo

Similarly to role-playing games, players are awarded experience points called A.P. (Action Points) and multi-tiered achievements called Medals arranged on bronze, silver, gold, platinum and black levels for their in-game actions.

A.P. alone are sufficient to go all the way from level 1 up to maximum level 8 thus allowing players to use more and more powerful items, but highly dedicated players can go beyond level 8 to achieve "prestige" levels from 9 to 16, which require combinations of medals and A.P.

A very important web tool provided with the game is the Intel map showing all portals around the world and their current status nearly in real-time

Niantic Labs released a nice official video tutorial of basic gameplay also available in my Videos page.

Actions, A.P., medals and levels are outlined in my Reference page.

Throughout the year, Niantic Labs organises official events in cities all over the globe gathering large numbers of players: some events called anomalies are competitive, affect the background story and/or are affected by it; other events, instead, are mainly social (known as IngressFS held on the first Saturday of every month) and/or aimed at tourism (known as Mission Days).

These events are announced and detailed via Ingress official Facebook, Google+ and Twitter profiles.

Agents attending "Shōnin" anomaly in Florence, Italy,

on Saturday, February 21^st, 2015

Ingress can be downloaded for free on Android from Google Play and on iOS from AppStore.

It's time to move.Ingress tagline

Not all mysteries are solvable, but the joy comes in the pursuit.Hank Johnson

DISCLAIMER: as already clearly stated in the footer of this website, Ingress and all Ingress-related logo are copyright of Niantic Labs; this is simply my fan site with no official affiliation.