Playing Ingress ( Technology based non-video game)

Video games generally represent an immersive way to interact within a virtual environment. But it happens rarely that a game combines both virtual and physical environment together. Ingress is fine example of such a game that not only does that but also forces people to learn more about their surrounding environment and especially the art installations. It kind of pushes you to move around the space and notice things that you had never noticed before. For example, I had never been to the aquatic center on the campus unless the game took me there. While looking out for new portals was exciting, coming across some very boring ones (like a random building) killed that excitement.

For me, the most exciting part was to see so how people really formed a huge community to play this game together. The success of it can be seen by the vast expanse of occupied territories on the world intel map. It does make you feel like a part of the virtual world where you know there are people around like you playing the game even though you can’t really spot them. Here are a few screenshots from my first gameplay:

Mechanics: This one game has a number of mechanics embedded into it starting from Area enclosure, Co-operative play, Partnerships, Network building, Area control, Storytelling to using GPS and google maps as a working mechanism.

Aesthetics: The aesthetics are pretty appealing and the automated voice commands really play up well with the theme. However, the story/narration does not really influence the players. It is more of a general exploration and acquiring a target or destroying the opposite one. Even if the story was missing, my actions would not have changed much.

Accessibility: Since it can be played only physically, phone becomes the best tool for the play itself. So, you have to actually step out and be present physically to play the game. This definitely demands a good amount of your time at hand to continue your quest in the game. The internet availability becomes another limitation as requires to use your data plan. The last but not a major concern is the high processor intensive programming. It ends up eating up a lot of your battery that needs you to be fully packed on the battery fuel before stepping outside. This forces me to think if the people playing in the rural areas have the same number of portals as in the urban areas. And does the number of people playing affect you on how interesting the game is.

However, it does show us the incredible power of the community building to play a game. I am hoping that as I increase my level, the game would become much more interesting to me. As a starter, it was still a lot of fun to play!