This article has two reasons to write:

- firstly,  summer has come  - a warm season, when you can walk more often, breathe fresh air and generally enjoy life outside your apartment;

- secondly, as an Ingress player, I myself have reached the long-awaited and desired  level 8, which, although not a ceiling, already allows you to use the game's capabilities at full capacity.

Ingress has become more than just a game for me - it has changed some aspects of my life, and for the better, so I want to involve as many players as possible in it. Therefore, let's start attracting an audience.

What is Ingress? 

Ingress is an embedded reality game. Everyone knows Pokemon go? Ingress is similar to her in that it also requires active wiggling of the legs, but in terms of plot and complexity, it is much more interesting.

The plot of the game lies in the fact that parallel to our Universe there is a Universe of Shapers - representatives of an unknown mind. It so happened that exotic matter - HM (XEm) - began to penetrate into our world from this alien universe. In the HM stream, Shapers can transmit signals to the human brain, influencing and changing it. ChM is present in our world unevenly - it can be anywhere, but it is mainly concentrated around cultural objects - monuments, sculptures and other human artifacts, where it forms portals - small holes that increase the release of ChM. After the discovery of the existence of XM and Shapers, people were divided into two factions -  Enlightenment (Enlightened, the green faction), whose representatives consider the Shapers friendly and capable of positively influencing humanity (intelligence, creativity), and the  Resistance  (blue faction), whose representatives consider the Shapers and their influence to be dangerous and fraught with the capture of humanity.

Guess which faction I chose?))

How to play? 

After you have installed Ingress on your smartphone, it ceases to be a simple device for communication and entertainment - it turns into a scanner on the screen of which the familiar world is transformed - on the streets and in the courtyards you begin to see XM and portals.

The arrow on the screen is you. Your location is determined by gps. The circle on the screen is your possible radius of action for collecting XM, capturing and breaking portals, etc. Actually, the white dots in the screenshot are the HM, the blazing green fire is the portal, and the multicolored legs around it are the installed resonators.

After the first launch of the game, you will be asked to choose the faction for which you will play, or rather, fight and fight -  Resistance  or  Enlightenment. Many people make this choice unconsciously, guided by their favorite color. Some people listen to themselves (like me) - with such a plot of the game, would I trust the Shapers or choose to resist their influence? Well, and, probably, almost no one is scouting the situation on which field they will have to play in this or that city (more on that later).

The essence of the game is to capture portals and connect them to each other, creating fields. Within each captured field there are MUs - "minds", thinking units. The more they are captured by your faction and you, the better.

To capture a portal, you need to install resonators on it. Portals captured by Enlightenment players are green, portals captured by Resistance players are blue. Neutral, unoccupied portals are white. Even a single resonator placed makes the portal belong to your faction. But in order to connect the portal with others, you need to have the maximum number of resonators installed on it - 8. You also need a key to the portal, which usually drops out when it is hacked.

As long as you are a beginner player, you only have access to in-game items of low levels: the player of the first level - items of the first level, the player of the second level - items of the second level, etc. With the development of the player, the "most advanced" items of level 8 become available for use.

The ingress prime items are:

-  resonators  (needed to capture the portal);

-  weapons  (you need to shoot the enemy portal and capture it);

-  energy cubes  (needed to replenish stocks of XM, which is spent on game actions);

-  mods  (installed on the portal to give it certain properties: shields protect, amplifiers help the portal to shoot back independently when trying to capture, etc.);

-  keys to the portals  (needed to connect the portals to each other and remotely charge the portals);

-  capsules  (needed to store in-game items and exchange them with other players).

Possible  game actions:

-  hacking the portal  (by hacking the portal of your faction, you get in-game items depending on the level of the portal; by hacking the portal of the enemy faction, you get in-game items + 100 experience points - ar);

-  capturing the portal  (by installing resonators on it; the level of the portal depends on the level of the resonators installed on it (the level is added and divided by 8, rounded down), for example, 8 resonators of the 8th level - the portal of the 8th level, but 7 eighths and 1 seventh - this is already a level 7 portal, etc .; the higher the level of the portal, the more in-game items and higher levels you can milk from it; for capturing the portal, 625 experience points are given + 125 for each resonator installed + 325 points for installing all resonators - the so-called full deployment);

-  connecting portals - link  (313 ap is given for a link) and fields creation (about 1500 are given for a field, sometimes more depending on the size of the created field);

-  shooting the enemy portal  (when shooting, the resonators are destroyed (+75 ap for each) and the mods placed on the portal are knocked out; after the shooting, the portal can be captured);

-  hacking with glyphs  (for this we hold down the "Hacking" button and repeat the graphic keys on the diagram; if repeated correctly, it gives experience points (a little - +50 for each correct key) and bonus inventory).

To   level up and level up faster:

- capture portals

- connect portals and create fields, and remember that many small fields will give more points than one large

- bomb enemy portals (the destruction of the resonator gives few points, but if links and fields are tied to the portal, you can get a lot of experience points for completely destroyed)

- for all this, save up staff - game inventory by hacking portals.

And, most importantly,  to play Ingress, you need to get your little body off the couch and go outside. To hack / seize the portal, you need to approach the portal so that it is within the active range. To shoot the portal, you also need to be closer to it (the further you are from the portal, the weaker the power of defeat).

Pros of the game

Ingress  is truly addicting. Precisely because real people play it on real territory. Realizing that you have a  homework  - a portal to which the scanner reaches right from the apartment - you start to groom and cherish it, putting the best mods and inviting other players to upgrade your portal - put resonators on it with a higher level. The capture of homework causes a storm of resentment and indignation and encourages revenge - to run into the street and smash enemy portals and fields). Going outside to play in your free time, you will find uporinin your blood  . - a substance that makes, in a state of stubbornness, run around the entire area, capturing all neutral portals, shooting and capturing all enemy portals, and also linking them all in their own way. As a rule, the weather does not particularly affect the level of uporin - only severe frosts and storm warnings are ways to leave a real ingressor at home.

Ingress is when, upon arrival to your mother-in-law, you run to the portal, try to link from it, and the wife makes excuses that you are taking things from the car.

Starting to play, you will find  many new acquaintances  - the curator of the region's faction notices new players and invites them to the general chat. There you will be taught the intricacies of the game, answer questions, help if anything with staff and can even meet and pump a newbie, helping to create poles. Factional and inter-factional meetings are not uncommon. Particularly highlighted are joint operations with the transfer of keys and the covering of the city with huge fields of their faction in spite of the enemies)))

Ingress is when you leave for some hole with a resist and return with a friend.

Ingress is played by people of all ages and professions, both boys and girls, and students, and bank employees, and promoters and forensic experts.

Ingress is when in real life you see how a landscape designer, a co-founder of a system intergrater, a weak current installer and an auditor enter a bar.

However, you can play alone. With Ingress you will walk a lot, breathe fresh air, which means you will  strengthen your immunity, improve your complexion, lose a few (or maybe a lot) extra pounds and make your legs and butt more beautiful and graceful.

Since portals are cultural artifacts, you will learn a  lot about the landmarks of  your city. For example, before Ingress, I did not notice a bunch of mosaics, bas-reliefs and memorial plaques. Well, the yard sculpture can amuse you from the bottom of the heart)))

Ingress is when you visited the most beautiful places in St. Petersburg, Milan, Vienna, Rome ... and saw nothing

And finally, a little about factions. Greens and blues are always fighting with each other, but, as a rule, there are few places where the forces are evenly distributed. For example, Kemerovo is a green city (hey, resists, did you fall asleep there, or what?):

My faction is the Resistance. In the blue city, on the one hand, this is good - you are in the majority, and many players will support and help you if something happens. On the other hand, there are fewer opportunities for development in terms of destroying enemy portals, for which they give good experience points. Capturing neutral portals and connecting portals is almost the only option. An entry-level green player on the central street of Barnaul can climb quite well by simply passing through all the portals along the route of the bus (you can also play from transport). Some even arrange delegations to cities of a different color to play well and raise the level.

I hope my article about this game captivated you, and you are already running to put the game on Google Play))) Believe me, it's worth it. Ingress is not just a game, but a whole subculture with its own slang, attributes and goals. Have you seen rhymes-pies in many games?