History VideoGame / Ingress

* ThatOneLevel: That one portal. The one located in the middle of nowhere. In that one valley where only one cell phone user in 100 is able to get a useful signal. That person is a member of the other faction and visits that one portal every other day to recharge it and to harvest more portal keys. Portal keys they eagerly and freely share with their opposition faction friends who all keep that portal remotely charged and linked with other cross-aligned portals.

** That one portal. The one located in the middle of nowhere. In that one valley where only one cell phone user in 100 is able to get a useful signal. That person is a member of the other faction and visits that one portal every other day to recharge it and to harvest more portal keys. Portal keys they eagerly and freely share with their opposition faction friends who all keep that portal remotely charged and linked with other cross-aligned portals.

An [[https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/ingress-the-animation-netflix-ingress-prime-1202867371/ anime adaptation]] to go along with the new version, produced by Studio Crafter under the direction of Yuhei Sakuragi and with character designs by Takeshi Honda will air in October 2018 with worldwide streaming from Creator/{{Netflix}} on November 23, 2018.

** That one portal. The one located in the middle of nowhere. In that one valley where only one cell phone user in 100 is able to get a useful signal. That person is am member of the other faction and visits that one portal every other day to recharge it and to harvest more portal keys. Portal keys they eagerly share with their opposition faction friends who all keep that portal charged and linked with other cross-aligned portals.

* DifficultySpike: Levels 2 through 8 are simple to obtain: Simply earn the required AP. Past that, however, not only do the AP requirements for each successive level continue to increase exponentially, but new levels require badges to earn, and depending on portal availability even getting from Level 8 to 9 may take several times as long as it did to get from 1 to 8.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ingress_logo.png]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/photo_49.jpg]]

* ActionCommands / ChargedAttack: As of version 1.39.2, XMP Bursters can be "charged up"; as you hold down the fire button, a ring of energy converges on your position; the smaller the ring, the more damage the Burster will inflict, up to a 20% boost in strength. However, once the ring converges completely, it vanishes and starts to converge again, meaning that attempting a 20% boost can result in no boost at all if timed too late.

* AntiPoopSocking / AntiGrinding: When a player hack a portal, it has a [[{{Overheating}} "cooldown"]] period of 5 minutes before the player can use it again. After four hacks, the portal "burns out" and needs four hours until it can be hacked once more. This is to prevent players from simply camping a portal all day for items. However, the Multi-Hack upgrade increases the number of times a portal can be hacked before it burns out, and the Heat Sink upgrade reduces the cooldown time between hacks. Portal cooldown and burnout are local to each player, so even if a large number of players are hacking the same portal, each individual player will be allowed to hack the portal four times by default.

* GameBreakingBug / TutorialFailure: The "Hack a Portal" tutorial failed on most devices because the "CHOOSE" button needed to advance wouldn't work, until a patch in October 2013 fixed it.

A new version of the game, Ingress Prime, is due to come out in Fall 2018. Instead of the now-defunct [=RoboVM=] this version will run on Unity, the same engine used by Niantic's other game ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', which will presumably make it easier for the two games to share features.

An [[https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/ingress-the-animation-netflix-ingress-prime-1202867371/ anime adaptation]] to go along with the new version, produced by Studio Crafter under the direction of Yuhei Sakuragi and with character designs by Takeshi Honda will air in October 2018 with worldwide streaming from Creator/{{Netflix}}.

A new version of the game, Ingress Prime, is due to come out in Fall 2018. This version will run on Unity instead of the now-defunct [=RoboVM=], the same engine used by Niantic's other game ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', which will presumably make it easier for the two games to share features.

A new version of the game, Ingress Prime, is due to come out in Fall 2018. This version will run on Unity instead of the now-defunct [=libGDX=], the same engine used by Niantic's other game ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', which will presumably make it easier for the two games to share features.

''[[http://www.ingress.com Ingress]]'' is an augmented-reality game created by the Niantic Labs team at Google.

The game is free to play[[note]]mostly; see BribingYourWayToVictory below[[/note]], and was released for {{Android|Games}} on [[http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.ingress Google Play]] in 2012 and for {{iOS|Games}} on the [[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id576505181 App Store]] in 2014. It is planned to get a massive overhaul in 2018.

An [[https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/ingress-the-animation-netflix-ingress-prime-1202867371/ anime adaptation]] produced by Studio Crafter under the direction of Yuhei Sakuragi and with character designs by Takeshi Honda will air in October, 2018 with worldwide streaming from Creator/{{Netflix}}.

Niantic Labs is also the developer for ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''.

Niantic Labs is also the developer for ''Endgame: Proving Ground'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''.

** The "Seer" medal that used to be awarded for having 10/50/200/500/5000 portal submissions approved. Due to the medal attracted huge amount of poor quality portal submissions, the option to submit new portals was temporarily disabled in 2015. When portal submission was re-enabled in 2017, the medal was retired as new portal submissions after the disablement period no long counted toward the medal.
** The Guardian medal that used to be awarded for holding a portal for 3/10/20/90/150 consecutive days. This attracted many griefers known as "Guardian Hunters" who used illegal scraping tools and/or location spoofing tools to track and find portals that were close to 90 or 150 days old, and then destroying them. Due to such player behaviors, the medal was retired on 2018-04-02. Players who had longest portal held time of 80+ and 140+ days (10 days before the milestone) were retroactively awarded Platinum and Black medal tiers.

* WhyWeCantHaveNiceThings: after years of "guardian hunting" using various hacks and scrapers, and the ensuing drama, the "Guardian" medal was dropped on 2 April 2018

** The Guardian medal that used to be awarded for holding a portal for 3/10/20/90/150 consecutive days. This attracted many griefers known as "Guardian Hunters" who used illegal scraping tools to track and find portals that were close to 90 or 150 days old, and then destroying them. Due to such player behaviors, the medal was retired on 2018-04-02. Players who had longest portal held time of 80+ and 140+ days (10 days before the milestone) were retroactively awarded Platinum and Black medal tiers.

** The "Seer" medal that used to be awarded for having n portal submissions approved. Due to the medal attracted huge amount of poor quality portal submissions, the option to submit new portals was temporarily disabled in 2015. When portal submission was re-enabled in 2017, the medal was retired as new portal submissions after the disablement period no long counted toward the medal.
** The Guardian medal that used to be award for holding a portal for n consecutive days. This attracted many griefers known as "Guardian Hunters" who used illegal scraping tools to track and find portals that were near n days old and destroy them. Due to such player behaviors, the medal was retired on 2018-04-02.

** The option to submit new portals was disabled in 2015, and with it, the ability to obtain the "Seer" medal or any upgrades to it if you have it already.

The game is free to play[[note]]mostly; see BribingYourWayToVictory below[[/note]], and was released for {{Android|Games}} on [[http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.ingress Google Play]] in 2012 and for {{iOS|Games}} on the [[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id576505181 App Store]] in 2014.

* BoringButPractical: Shields simply reduce the damage inflicted on Portals by a fixed percentage, forcing enemies to burn through more weapons to weaken them. Not only do they stack additively, but they don't suffer from any DiminishingReturnsForBalance until 95% mitigation, whereas other Mods always get weaker with each successive multiple of the same Mod on one Portal.

*** Level 1 (the weakest) are yellow, while Level 8 items (the most powerful) are purple.