What Google should do to make Ingress more popular

thomasthethinkengine.com

17 pointspkhamre4 comments

> It is absurdly complex and hard to learn

Yep. I made the mistake of trying it in the winter (over a year ago), and the tutorial was awful. Standing outside in the cold trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do was not fun.

I love complex games, but Ingress didn't seem complex so much as overcomplicated and obtuse. Simplicity is absolutely key when you're talking about fiddling with your smartphone while walking around a city.

> Standing outside in the cold trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do was not fun.

A computer game which precisely captures the experience of doing sports!

I honestly cannot tell if I'm supposed to take this seriously or not.

Was it the part where he called "kittens vs pirates" skeumorphism? Because that was definitely my favorite part.

Anyway, I coincidentally started playing Ingress last Thursday and it is incredibly addictive and easy to learn. I'm not sure what is counter-intuitive about anything, although I do concede that the rules could be a little clearer from within the app (virus behavior, speed limits, etc). Then again, why would you expect a game from Google to involve no googling?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com