Ingress - (Anyone Play?)

Just wondering if anyone plays this game.

Its like a live giant scavenger hunt or hide and seek with a twist and its all based on these "portals" which are really parts of your city that you have to get to and either capture or destroy. These portals are usually buildings that have great architecture, public art, government buildings, landmarks, statues, fountains, etc. So there are a lot of portals in Downtown areas and places like University Circle in Cleveland, and you can submit your own portals and see if they get accepted.

A little background on the game from WIKI.

Ingress is a near-real time augmented reality[1] massively multiplayer online video game created by Niantic Labs, a start up within Google, for Android devices.[2] The game has a complex science fiction back story which Niantic is revealing in segments.[3][4]

The gameplay consists of establishing "portals" at places of public art, etc., and linking them to create virtual triangular fields over geographic areas. Progress in the game is measured by the number of Mind Units, i.e. people, nominally controlled by each faction (as illustrated on the Intel Map).[5][6] The necessary links between portals may range from meters to kilometers, or to hundreds of kilometers in operations of considerable logistical complexity.[7] International links and fields are not uncommon, as Ingress has attracted an enthusiastic following in cities worldwide[8] amongst both young and old,[9] to the extent that the gameplay is itself a lifestyle for some, including tattoos.[10][11]

The game makers' framing device for the game is as follows: Earth has been seeded with “Exotic Matter,” or XM, associated with the Shapers, a mysterious phenomenon or alien race which is neither described nor seen (and which thus functions as a MacGuffin). The in-universe motivation for the Enlightened faction is their belief that the Shapers are working toward a powerful enlightenment which will uplift all mankind. The Resistance believes that it is protecting humanity from Shaper ingression.[12] The factions have, however, been occasionally observed to ignore the back-story and to co-operate for the sake of real-life gameplay and game balance, for example by establishing neutral zones and rules of engagement.[13]

A player using the mobile app is presented with a map representing the area nearby. The map has a black background while only roads are represented in grey and the entire map is completely unmarked. Visible on the map are portals, Exotic Matter, links, control fields, portal keys, and items that have been dropped from a player's inventory.

Players must be physically near objects on the map to interact with them. The mobile client represents the player as a small arrow in the center of a 40-meter oval which represents the perimeter within which direct interaction is possible.

Players are rewarded with "Action Points" (AP) for actions within the game. When a player accumulates enough AP, their player level increases, with Level 1 being the starting level and Level 8 the highest available level in the game. Higher-level players are able to make use of higher-level in-game items.

The makers of the game have seeded the earth with a large number of “Portals”, visible to those using the game software. They are colored green, blue, or grey, depending on whether they are controlled by the Enlightened, the Resistance, or currently unclaimed. A portal with no resonators is unclaimed; to claim a portal for a faction, a player deploys at least one resonator on it. Each portal may be equipped with up to eight resonators and four modifications (or "mods").

Portals are typically associated with cultural landmarks such as sculptures and other public art, libraries, post offices, memorials, places of worship, public transit hubs, buildings of historic and/or architectural significance, and other recreational or touristic features.[14] Players may submit requests for the creation of new portals,[15] and the number of portals has increased steadily over the lifetime of the game.

The density of portals correlates with population density, thus the central portion of cities typically contains the highest concentration of portals.

A portal may be equipped with up to eight "resonators" from one faction. Resonators have levels, ranging from level 1 to at least level 8. A player can deploy resonators only up to his or her own level, and there are rules about how many of each level an individual can deploy.[16][17] The game mechanics reward teamwork by limiting the number of high-level resonators a single player can deploy; up to eight players working together can create a far higher-level portal than any one player can create individually. [18] Furthermore, the resonators decay spontaneously over time, and must be recharged either on site, or remotely, or both.

A portal may be equipped with up to four modifications, or "mods." As of June 2013, there are six types of modification available: Shields, Force Amplifiers, Link Amplifiers, Multi-hack, Heat Sinks, and Turrets. These have effects such as making the portal more difficult to attack, increasing the intensity of the portal’s response to attackers, and increasing the yield of hacking the portal.[19] As of September 2013, an individual player may place up to 2 mods per portal. They may not be removed or upgraded once placed.

Just wanted to see if anyone played because it could be interesting to have a UO group pick a side and create new portals and try to create control fields between cities such as going from Cleveland to Akron to Columbus and all the way down to Dayton and Cincy. There are some groups out there also that do this to have fun and explore their surroundings while finding out new things they might have not known existed.

I think its cool too because you get these portal keys for the portals you capture which sometimes has descriptions of the building, artwork, etc that you captured and you can pull it up and get the location for them anytime you want.