December 4th, 2013. It has been exactly an year since I joined the fascinating world of Ingress. Ingress is an augmented reality game developed by Niantic, in which two factions; the Enlightened and the Resistance fight for the future of the world. I was introduced to this game by my elder brother who had heard about it from someone. While I liked the idea of having to move physically from one place to another to play a game, I was also a bit apprehensive since I had to practically remove ALL extra apps from my old cellphone just to make space to install it! However, after watching the intro video on the app page (http://goo.gl/7IYAsL) I decided to give it a try.
In the interest of the betterment of mankind, Enlightened was the obvious choice for me! It took some time, but once I started playing, I was hooked! The game had encouraged me to explore new places, and roam around my city discovering areas which I never new existed. I would now, plan how and when to accommodate Ingress to daily schedule. Even my daily route changed to cover as many portals as possible! All the while, I was discovering new facets of the game play, such as you need portal keys to link two portals, or that Level 1, there is no point in attacking a L5 portal, etc. Slowly but steadily, I was starting to understand different aspects of the game and planning my actions such that I could get maximum Action Points. I planned and executed one or two small operations on my own (Planned by taking a screenshot of the intel map and drawing links in MS Paint!).
It may come as a surprise to some of you that I had not met a single fellow agent (Enlightened nor Resistance) until I was at Level 6! This was mainly due to the fact that, while my brother had introduced me to the game, he was yet to play it! The first time I met someone was when I saw an agent asking if anyone required inventory. This was the point where I established "First Contact" with the other members of the Enlightened in Pune. This was the first time that I actually participated in the "Social Aspect" of Ingress. Now that I have been playing Ingress for a while, I am glad that I took up the offer to get some inventory from Agent @Urdir, because while playing Ingress is fun, playing it with your fellow agents is a Blast!
There have been some small milestones in my journey of
Ingress uptill today. There are 4 hours during which I hacked,
destroyed, deployed and linked my way across Pune's Tilak road to reach
Level 8, or the time when my first Portal submission got accepted, or
when I finally managed to take the top spot in our Cell scores or maybe
the time when what was to be a small 1 hour Ingress time turned out to
be a 4 hour Impromptu operation that covered most of the Karvenagar
area! Not to mention the times when plans were ruined by some Resistance
agent destroying the Anchor portal before the OP was completed (Grr!)
or destroying my Guardian on the 83rd day (Noo!). I think it's amazing how much and how easily a simple game becomes part of your daily routine! Ever since I started playing Ingress, I have met so many new people from so many different backgrounds. I am grateful to my fellow Ingress Agents (Enlightened & Resistance) in Pune and elsewhere to have helped me level up and become part of what's know as Ingress community.
Keep Ingressing! and remember,
"The World around You is not what it seems!"
I'll see you in the Field...
@DvaUjweya.
