Ingress: Augmented Reality Game, Now Available for iOS

Ingress is a mobile game that involves warring factions battling to control specific, physical points in the real world. I first heard about this game last year, but at the time it was only available for Android devices. I learned yesterday, that an iOS version was available… and decided to check it out.

The game itself is quite beautiful (but boy, does it drain your battery). I’m slowly going through the tutorials, trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. There are a lot of fancy terms bandied about: Exotic Matter (XM), Access Points (AP), and Mind Units (MU).

This beginner’s guide offers a nice overview:

I’m pretty good with picking up new games, but I’m finding myself struggling a bit to make sense of what all needs to happen. I had a bit of downtime before going to work this morning, and I played around some… but I don’t know if I’m just slow to grok the terminology/tasks, or if I’m just not that willing to invest the time to really delve into this game.

It’s an interesting concept, huge in scope and seemingly very collaborative in nature. And it definitely looks pretty on my phone. We’ll see if this is something that keeps my interest beyond this week.

Random thought: I wonder if this is just an elaborate play by Google to better track my physical whereabouts. Basically what FourSquare does, but with better graphics.

[via @Cbab]

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