Google Launches Ingress, a Worldwide Mobile Alternate Reality Game | Hacker News Reader

Google Launches Ingress, a Worldwide Mobile Alternate Reality Game

allthingsd.com

287 pointssek142 comments

I've been so waiting for something like this. While I'm expecting to be disappointed by this early effort the idea is exciting and something that was inevitable.

There was a great anime series that sadly doesn't have distribution in the US called Denno Coil[1] that is required viewing for anyone interested in augmented reality.

The series follows a group of kids in a city that grow up with Google Glasses type functionality with virtual pets and software as "magic". The kids lead a life based upon this augmented reality laid over the real reality. If you like anime this show is worth tracking down a torrent for.

It's also worth checking out the Halting State series from Charles Stross if you're up for some reading.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil

Even from early beta versions it's been surprisingly addicting. The first time I tried it I went for a walk, and found myself still wandering the streets at 2am, only returning home when my battery was giving out :). If I'm at all average, you won't be too disappointed!

If you like that kind of thing I'll push Kaiba as a further-future look at a world where the ability to edit memories and change bodies makes personal identity much more nebulous. It's all emphasised with these amorphous visuals that are a great example of something that's only possible in the animated medium.

Sounds like Dollhouse, which was live actors.

You could tell the same story in live action but it would be pretty much impossible to get the same kind of visuals (even the A Scanner Darkly technique wouldn't be enough) - and it's the way the visuals dovetail with the world and the story that makes Kaiba so great.

That was a seriously interesting show. Even if you're not 'into' anime, I recommend it.

Interesting. Decent rank on AniDB too: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=4345

I'll definitely give it a shot. Thanks!

I had fantasised about this since I was about 10 years old and today it has been realised.

+1 Loved this series. Had a real sense of 'William Gibson' about it.

I like the underlying customer cause here - Let's get people off their chairs, on to the streets and meeting each other. Let's create interestingness in the mundane. Let's create a world which rewards interaction. A lovely antidote to the trend for us to all walk around with heads down, checking the latest irrelevancy on our smartphones.

It's also about spotting the beautiful in your surroundings; rather than just interestingness in the mundane, Ingress draws attention to art that you may not ever have looked at before despite walking past it every day. I've discovered a number of statues and sculptures while beta testing it that I genuinely had never noticed before.

I love the underlying engineering cause -- let's get everyone to keep a GPS/data link open while they walk around popular city attractions and roadways so we can build an amazing pedestrian pathfinding system.

Bingo. We have a winner.

It's scary how much this sounds like the world envisioned by Daniel Suarez in Daemon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(technothriller_series)

Google has diverless cars, Glasses that overlay information on top of reality, and now is making a sort of game out of it.

I'm certain that book is well known to the development team :D

Also reminded me of Vinge's Rainbow's Edge.

You mean 'Rainbows End'. (The lack of a possessive apostrophe is also intentional.)

And of course the Metaverse in Snow Crash.

And then Black Oceans by Jacek Dukaj. One of the most idea-dense book I ever read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czarne_oceany

That one wasn't actually augmented, but virtual.

Project Glass was announced only a few weeks after I finished Freedom (Second book of Daemon). I was excited then, and I'm excited now.

While I enjoyed his books, I don't think these predictions were exactly prescient. He was essentially writing about things that were just beyond the capabilities of existing technology...

I read Daemon a week ago and it was meh... it was somewhat surrealist to me. But nice book anyways.

Daemon is only half the book, read the other half called Freedom_TM.

Yes I know, the ending is quite open... but I didn't like at all how Daemon ends, so I'm not really interested in the other book.

I find it odd there is no discussion about what Google's motivation/business case is for Ingress. Reddit user Sharper_pmp has a compelling theory that it's an attempt to collect pedestrian route data to compete with Nokia's newly announced turn-by-turn routes for pedestrians. He also brings up instances in the past where Google has created mutually beneficial ways to have people voluntarily build their data sets.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/138res/google_launc...

Shaper_pmp, but thanks for the mention. ;-)

It seems to me that, with the ubiquity of smartphones and how powerful they're becoming, it's only a matter of time before there's a constantly-evolving digital facsimile of the real world. We've started to see how, for example, many geo-tagged photos can be reconstructed into a pointcloud (see Microsoft's Photosynth amongst others), and how everyone is now carrying a location-aware camera-computer in their pockets... Projects like streetview would become obsolete.

The possibility for alternate reality games will be immense, but I suspect that's just scratching the surface. We've only had this smartphone technology for what? 5 years or so? And so far all ours uses for this technology have been fairly superficial and mundane (by which I mean, if you'd gone back a decade and asked people "what would you make if you had a smartphone that could do x?" you'd probably get decent predictions of the present day). But in 10, 20 years I imagine it'll have evolved to something far beyond what we can currently imagine.

Didn't you know? We are living in a simulated reality: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

(Probably)

"We are in a simulation" is a meaningless statement. It's like saying that there are millinons of invisible unicorns on Earth.

It would be meaningless, if we lived in an undetectable simulation. But IIRC, there's a recent paper that allows us to detect if we live at least in certain kinds of simulations.

Ah, here we go: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429561/the-measurement-...

If I understand it correctly, they basically say "Our universe is discrete, therefore we're in a simulation".

Ok, if "being in simulation" == "discreteness", than yes, "being in simulation" is meaningful. But why not just argue whether our universe is discrete? Why introduce the concept of simulation, which evokes a picture of some higher level universe with a big computer running our universe. Which is just an idea in our heads, nothing more.

"We're in a simulation" implies that our universe is discrete, nothing more, so it's meaningless in a sense.

(Other problem is that if we're in a non-discrete universe, we may be able to make non-discrete software. But that's not the main point of what I tried to say.)

Only if we assume that the "host" universe's computers are discrete, an assumption for which there is exactly no basis. We can't even speculate about the physical laws of the outer universe, much less what kind of computers it has, if "computers" as we know them even a valid concept.

Nitpick: "We are in a perfect and undetectable simulation" is a meaningless statement. If e.g. someone found a privilege escalation in our reality's VM that would be quite meaningful.

Good point, that's how I meant it :) Similarly, if the unicorns found a way to become visible, it would become a meaningul statement too.

Reality hackers? Let's badger Charlie Stross to write a novel about it. :)

There's a great novel based on this very concept: Fine Structure ( http://everything2.com/title/Fine+Structure ). Definitely worth a read.

I get what you are saying, but I disagree. If there were millions of invisible unicorns, surely we'd occassionally bump in to one. Azaleas would go missing. With the right technology, it might be possible to harvest them for ivory or meat or hoofs for glue.

If we live in a simulation, there may be experiments that would demonstrate the fact. There may be ways to 'hack' the simulation and break all kinds of physical laws.

By "invisible unicorn" I meant a unicorn that doesn't have any effect on the physical world.

Our universe could behave, in some ways, like a computer simulation (but the question is, in what specific ways?). But it is similar to light rays behaving like waves. Which is different from light rays being equivalent to waves.

That sounds suspiciously like quantum, it does.

Doesn't your explanation mean saying we live in a simulation is _exactly like_ saying there are millions of invisible unicorns?

OK, I really tried to read that, but my lack of coffee and presence of being really tired made it hard to consume. Was the entire premise of it that one day a being will have computers powerful enough to simulate humanity, so of course they will, and we are the result of it? Some of those assumptions seem pretty damn big, but again, I could just be too tired to read it.

Then it'll be turtles all the way down :)

Simulation is overkill; the Matrix approach is cheaper - run the simulation within the brain.

Maybe we are a simulation within some entities brain.

Or maybe that's just what it wants you to think.

There's some nice discussion about Google's possible motivations for doing this here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/138res/google_launc...

Granted, speculation, but rather convincing.

>TL;DR: Whatever the plot's about, the point of it is to quickly and cheaply build an unrivaled corpus of pedestrian-accessible routes, locations and journey-times for the next generation of foot-enabled Google Maps and Navigation apps

Edit seems that user 'rescripting' somewhere above has already made a reference to that discussion.

Seems like more of an Augmented Reality Game and not really a traditional ARG (Alternate Reality Game). The difference seems trivial but is quite significant.

It's both. The ARG trailhead is at http://www.nianticproject.com/

If an Augmented Reality Game is one which add no fictional elements, I'm not sure I agree. Can you elaborate?

This is very reminiscent of EA's Majestic game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_(video_game)

It was like X-Files conspiracy theories meets The Game (the Michael Douglas movie). Sadly, it didn't last very long. I'm hoping this will do better.

I wonder if Majestic would have done better if it didn't launch a month and a half before 9/11. People were on edge then, and a game that ends up making mysterious phone calls to you probably wouldn't go over well.

I actually thought it was a pretty cool concept from at least what little I played of it.

Thank you very much for this! I have been looking for the name of that game for years!

It resembles so much Shadow Cities (http://www.shadowcities.com/) that it almost feels like copying.

Side note -- I went to a great talk by the Grey Area (Shadow Cities) guys at GDC, and one of their big takeaways was that you need to enable competition between people who aren't geographically near one another. Otherwise you don't build a critical mass of players.

I can't tell from the available material if Ingress gameplay provides for satisfying solo play, but if it doesn't they're going to hit the same issues Grey Area did originally.

Yeah, I wonder if Grey Area is involved with this?

Not the first to, shall we say, draw extensive inspiration from shadow cities: http://qonqr.com/

There is so little shame in the industry anymore, but it is admittedly a very difficult task to be creative in a gaming startup.

Competition is a good thing I guess. I'd hate to be competing with Google though. Their fanboi base is suffuse with a devotion that borders on unquestioning faith which plays well in the gaming segment where the hard part is initially attracting critical mass for the underlying game dynamic to be fun.

Did World of Fourcraft predate Shadow Cities? http://mashable.com/2011/06/29/world-of-fourcraft/

No, shadow cities predates that game by over a year, but it remained a fairly European presence at the time. And the games are fairly distinct, that looks to be simply a "squatting" game with little strategy.

Look at the other 2 games linked and you find they are not only disturbingly similar in game mechanics but the graphics are also fairly derivative.

A nice play to refine their map accuracy with Waze-style gamification (plus advertising, of course).

Looks like they are paving the way for a Google Glass world.

Very cool, I've been talking about something like this on and off for several years now with friends. I've been continually fascinated with the possibilities of AR since about the time of Eye of Judgement [1] and even more after fooling with Layar [2] on my OG Droid back in 2009.

The possibilities seem endless, not just games or gamification but public safety, education - all sorts of things.

I'm a bit disappointed to find that this project is invite only, but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP4TjzUfOeU

2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08

The name is a surprise. The Ingres database is still kicking, it's an OSS project that's was a commercial product for 20 years before that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database)

But "ingress" is also an English language word, with a definition unrelated to what you're talking about.

I doubt this is a reference to a piece of software. "Ingress" also means "to enter", the opposite of "egress".

Lots of interesting stuff going on in this space. Shadow cities is another one that's doing pretty well. The big question to me is, where's the Zynga of this world? Can you make casual location aware ARGs?

I tried playing Shadow Cities, and the interface was mostly confusing, so I stopped.

Hmm. Are you a gamer? I'm not, and I don't play Shadow Cities anymore for the same reason but it seems to be doing well with people who're more active gamers, which is why I was wondering if there's a way to make the games more casual for people that don't want to live in that universe all the time.

Foursquare is close, but it doesn't feel like a game at all.

It wasn't the casualness of it - I literally had no idea what to do about nodes "near me", or what "battling" those sprite things did for me.

Plus, those were the only two game mechanics I saw - I could battle things, and then I could click on nodes, and neither really seemed to progress me anywhere.

I feel like that game should have had a much more thorough tutorial.

Sure, why not. If people will senselessly check in via FourSquare I'm sure they'll play some kind of AR Farmville.

Download Qualcomms' Vuforia SDK and get cracking:

  http://www.qualcomm.com/solutions/augmented-reality

  https://ar.qualcomm.at/

These sure are interesting times. Its becoming too easy to go from sci-fi to just plain sci ..

Does anyone know if this is really 'multiplayer' or if your experience is in any way influence by the progress of others?

I've toyed with a similar ideas but the problem was that your GPS location doesn't guarantee you are really there. There are plenty of ways to spoof your location. So, my point is it will only be a matter of time until there are bots that walk around for you. If this is purely a 'single player' game then personally I think it's a neat idea but I don't see it being that entertaining.

Yes, it is multiplayer. You capture portals and others can come along and blow them up, taking them for the opposition. The promotional video certainly captures the feeling of 'someone is attacking this portal.. wait.. is it that guy over there staring at his phone?'

Couldn't you use physical QR code stickers for such proof of location? They can be fairly small and merely need to contain a random UID code (or an URL with the code as query parameter).

Of course that only works up until people start sharing those codes online, even though you can tweak game mechanics to discourage players wanting to do that, it's impossible to prevent.

it's impossible to prevent.

Precisely. Which is why I think this will have a tough time succeeding. Even casual gamers will eventually get frustrated. This is also the sort of thing that is difficult to repair once the damage is done.

Next on a TODO list: an Alternate Reality Game of which players are not aware.

Even better use people that play a Alternate Reality Game to execute real missions.

YES! let's build the matrix! who's in with me?

I would, but I'm busy selling stocks.

I've been wanting to play some ARG since I read Little Brother, can't wait to try this out.

A blog post I wrote back in 2007 (on Noah's blog) comparing Google and Daemon: http://okdork.com/2007/06/18/is-google-the-daemon/

[Edit: Looks like I currently have no invites left. As I get more, I'll give them out and update this post.]

I think I have a few invites to give out. Let me know if you'd like one.

P.S. I'm Resistance using the name drew

Doh! Wanted to comment here earlier but my Hacker News app on Android doesn't allow comments!

I'm rich.bradshaw on ye old gmail if anyone has any invites left!

If anyone has any invites left, we'd all sure appreciate it :)

peterk @ chykalophiagroup.com

Wonder if this works alright in the suburbs ...

Thank you kind sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar. jacobregenstein{at}gmail.com

Hey,

Looking forward to the invitation code: sherjilozair@gmail.com

Thanks!

I'd love one if you get some more. My email is in my profile.

My email is in the profile. Could I have one too? Thanks.

I'd like one, email address is pheartheceal@gmail.com

Anyway you can send one after joining? xshoppyx@hotmail.com

One for me too, please. Sent you an email. Thanks.

I would love an invite. dntrkv(at)gmail(dot)com

I`d like an invite too, cannonstar on gmail.

kingdon<at>tuesdaystudios dot com

I would love to get one if you get more to give out! Thanks

just received an activation code, so now don't waste your invitation on me if you're still reading this thread! :)

Please simone[at]metwit.com

ilanco <AT> gmail.com, if you've got an invite to spare. Thanks.

request you to please send me an invite.. raghav305@gmail.com

Thanks,

awesome if you get any more you could spare. I sent you an email.

alieander@gmail.com

jay at jp hyphen hosting dot net

Thanks anyone! :)

ryan at ryanbrunner dot com.

Thanks!

smokie<[at]>lavabit.com

mictro@gmail.com, thanks alot!

iamdownloader@gmail.com TIA

dplynch@gmail.com pls

morenoh149@gmail.com

evgenith gmail com

qube23 gmail com

The toolkit will be interesting to see once it's developed.

I had some ideas for a "discover your community" ARG two years ago that might be able to take advantage of this.

I hope the game (if it catches on) is sensitive to traffic congestion, or decreases rewards for driving in traffic, and further, doesn't steer people toward areas of increased smog, car-on-pedestrian accidents, or crime (I'll bet the EULA disclaims that liability).

Getting shut-ins outside where they can be hit by cars may have net health benefits (and people can choose for themselves).

This looks really interesting to me. Fascinating to see more augmented reality concepts being pushed out. I am interested to see if this will eventually be tied in with glass. Google really seems to be pushing towards ubiquitous computing lately.

Can't wait to try it out if I get an invite from them.

I find it more than a little scary that, coming from a company with as much influence as Google, the subliminal message here is that pro-technology people are "enlightened", and anyone else is "resistance".

And to me 'enlightened' sounds like hippy-religious-rubbish so I'd probably immediately plumb for resistance.

With games like this you need to have both "sides" have an attractive "we're the goodies" pitch. I thought it was rather clever naming since I think I could argue myself into either camp quite easily.

This is somewhat alarming for my team as we've been working on very similar stuff for a while now (albeit for iOS). Oh well, full steam ahead, I suppose.

I'm curious, how are you dealing with cheaters via spoofed GPS locations?

sorry, was sick all weekend! So far we haven't worked out anti-cheating strategies, because we haven't really structured the initial challenges around rewards or achievements, but rather around personal interests. As we add more traditional rewards and scoring type stuff (it hurts my soul to type gameification with sincerity) we'll have to start addressing cheating, particularly if we release clients on other platforms or a direct API to our system.

No problem! I hope you can figure it out. I've had many ideas for GPS-based games but as an avid gamer I couldn't help see all the ways I could cheat my own system.

Somewhat related... I'm not sure if you checked out my HN profile but I actually founded a gamification platform company called http://IActionable.com a few years ago. We started it before the word 'gamification' even existed got to watch in horror as people turned it into a cheap gimmick instead of properly implementing it. We actually don't like the term 'gamification' and the baggage that comes with it. Dealing with cheating was a high priority on our list when we initially targeted social applications but we eventually found the enterprise market to be the best fit for our technology. Basically, we were able to avoid the cheating problem because we made the 'game' involve people you really knew which naturally discouraged cheating.

Thanks! I completely get what you are talking about re: the merits of meaningful game features vs just a cheap "gamification" job... something we'll have to keep an eye on as we move forward. This is my first company/product (ever) so it's a bit alarming how many things we've already realized we don't know.

Thank you for your comments, I'm definitely going to check out your firm's site and from a business and personal interest standpoint because frankly it seems like you've thought through at least several things we haven't quite gotten to yet. For example, I hadn't realized (although perhaps intuitive in hindsight) that the context of whom you are playing with/against can effectively curb anti-social behavior like cheating.

Sadly it seems to require an invite at this time. :(

This is eerily similar to the show H+.

Not on the same scale of course, but that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw this post.

Is this game available in all locations? Does anyone have an idea if this is available outside US? India?

Trailer seemed cool, but I'd like to see an actual gameplay video. Anyone have a link to real footage?

I think the stuff you're seeing the device screens in the trailer is the gameplay footage... You go somewhere, scan around for "energy", and "hack it" or whatever.

This is very cool and creative and will hopefully push the envelope for mobile alternate reality!

If anyone has invites.... ;-) see profile for email address.

This make me remember Sword art online (anime) a little bit.

I want an invite! Tks

Hi ... can someone please send me an invite ..

Thanks in advance!

Could someone please give me an invite key? :)

Hum, since Google is an ad company I assume that bonus will magically appear in Starbucks and McDonalds.

can anyone please invite me .. raghav305@gmail.com Thanks,

Anyone have invites?

can anyone please invite me raghav305@gmail.com

thanks in advance!

will this work in India?

So I'll ask the obvious question. Resistance or Enlightenment?

Be careful which you choose.

You'll be shown specific ads on google based on it.

Google's tongue must be firmly in cheek when it asks us to choose a faction if the apps permissions are any indication...

Terrorist

Deleted comment

On the surface yes, but Ingress is strategically brilliant on many levels. Well executed, this could make Android the 'cool' OS to have on your phone. This is a great strategy to build the Android brand and sustain their unit volume domination.

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