Ingress

The world around you is not what it seems.

So begins the introduction to Ingress, one of the first augmented reality games that first hit the streets four or five years ago.  Although Pokemon GO has received a lot of publicity, it does little that Ingress hadn't pioneered first.

At its heart, Ingress is an old-fashioned capture-the-flag game.  When you sign up you join one of two teams (the backstory dictates these are called The Enlightened and The Resistance but due to the team colours being green and blue they're more colloquially referred to as frogs and smurfs) and you have an app which overlays the game map over Google Maps.  You then hunt out the flags^H^H^H^H^Hportals, change them to your colour if they're not already and tap them for in-game equipment.

There's a lot more to it than that but it gets people out and exercising in pursuit of those sites and if you link up with other local members of your team there's a strong camaraderie.

I started playing back in April as a bit of research looking at how augmented reality can be used in games and committed to joining in for a year to get the full experience before deciding what I thought.  In those seven months I've walked 867km that I wouldn't otherwise have done and met a variety of other players.  I suspect I'll still finish with it when the year is up as the combative nature of the game isn't one I immediately click with but it's continuing to be an interesting journey.