Geek Chic Experience Part 1: Ordering and Waiting

Spoilers:  I got a Geek Chic Table this weekend.  Here's my experiences of getting one.  In this part, we talk about what it was like to order it and wait for it.

Playing Memoir '44 Eastern Front

It all began early 2014.  At that time, my partner and I were in a really good financial situation and wanted to "splurge" on something to enhance our favorite hobby together:  board games.  I googled for "Geek Board Game Table" and discovered Geek Chic.  In late April, we decided to put down a deposit on an Emissary table and waited for our "valet" to contact us. Just a few weeks later, Beth from Geek Chic contacted us to start walking through our decisions.

The valet experience was fantastic.  Over the next month, she gathered all sorts of information from us.  How big the room was.  How big our games were.  How big we were.  What games we play.  etc. etc. etc.  They had little pamphlets and flyers for every decision we might make.  What type of felt we wanted.  What type of wood. The design of the leaves. The various accessories.  Everything was incredibly well presented and laid out, and all of our questions were answered with surprising clarity.

Between June and September, we sort of dropped out of communication with Geek Chic, due to getting married and such, but as soon as we got back, we started talking to them again.  We were supposed to go into production in October, but were delayed until December, which gave us a little extra breathing room to finalize everything.  We had our final design done on November 11, 2014.

The rest of the experience wasn't as smooth as the beginning.  We were frequently told by Geek chic that we would get communications at such and such time, but then they wouldn't contact us at all.  After a few weeks, I'd email them and finally get a response.  There were definitely some communication issues, some of which may have been on my side, but a few were definitely on theirs. To their credit, when I emailed them about these delays in communication, they'd usually have a good explanation.  It was just disappointing after such a wonderful valet experience to have such a mediocre customer experience during the manufacturing phase.  I could detail all of it, but it's not necessary.  I wouldn't say it was a *bad* experience.  Just mediocre.

All that said, the table was finally finished on August 4, 2015 and Geek Chic sent us a bunch of pictures of the table in its pre-shipped form.

A few weeks ahead, we were given a call that the table would be delivered between Saturday, August 22 and Monday, August 24, probably on Sunday, August 23, 2015.

In the next part, I'll go over the delivery day experience!

Outer Wilds

Contribute to the OuterWilds Campaign

Outer Wilds is my favorite game of all time, and it hasn't even been released yet.

Back a few years ago, a small group of college students put together a tiny demo of a game for a school project.  It was an ambitious, but incredible project that resonated with the hearts of people everywhere.  This year, the leader (or only member?) of that team joined a real software development company, and his first project as part of that team is to turn this little project into a fully featured game.

If I were to say what makes this game so great, it is that it is the first game I have ever seen that takes the dream, fantasy, and wonder of space flight, as seen through the lens of science fiction, and distills it into an immensely fun and playable experience.

The game is essentially a game of exploration and discovery.  A wide and wonderful solar system lay before you, and you can explore it at your whim.  After a brief introduction to the world you're joining, and to how to maneuver and navigate in this environment, you are thrown to the winds of space in your very own space ship.  You travel to and from distant planets throughout your solar system, discovering what is happening and unveiling a deep and fundamental mystery as you go.

This isn't a game of getting achievements, or racking up points.  There's no laser guns or beam weapons.  What danger there is is found predominantly in the environment itself.  Don't land too hard or you'll damage your ship or break your leg.  Don't turn on autopilot so that it takes you through the sun.  There's no inventory.  No complex events.  Nothing you'd normally see in a game.  Just you and an environment to explore, and what an environment it is.

Flying in this game is magical.  It is effortless and free, unbound by the realities of space.  A fantastic rendition of travel through the stars that manages to hold to just enough reality to fulfill your imagination of what space might be like without making things hard, like you might find in Kerbal Space Program.  This is the Neverending Story of space flight, riding your luck dragon through the cosmos, feeling the wind in your hair in an entirely unrealistic, and yet delightful experience.  One of my favorite things to do is to get out of my ship and just coast along, watching the planets go by.

The version that has been resleased so far is unfinished.  Seeking answers to some of the mysteries present in the game simply wind up at a dead end.  A void where *something* should be.  A space that feels like it should be more meaningful than it winds up being.  They are looking for funding to help finish the game and release it for all to enjoy, with all of these gaps and dead ends filled in.  The world we have explored so far will be completed, and the story will go on without leaving us hungry and wanting for more as it has in the past.

I strongly recommend you check out the alpha, freely available online, and if you like it, go to the link above and give them $20 or so.  The world will be a better place for it. :)

Oh, and here's their AWESOME pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL5bEI5siwE

Nutech: Amazon Echo is DAMNED useful

Hey there.  After I finish selling you this bridge I have for sale, I'm going to sell you a $170 tube that has Siri in it and plays music.

I have no screen and minimal physical control inputs.

Like, right?  You hear about this thing, and it just sounds like another dumb tech gadget that people buy to show off how techy and geeky their life is.  When Amazon Prime offered me an opportunity to buy it at half the price, I thought I'd check it out, being the UX geek that I am, but I figured it would be quite a dud and I'd be giving it away to someone else pretty quickly.  Boy, was I wrong.

Review

What has blown my mind, though, is just how useful this pringles can can be, especially given the fact that this is only the earliest of releases for this thing.  In our household, we use it fairly frequently.  More than ever before, our house is filled with music, and basic kitchen tasks are a lot more convenient.  It's great.

Okay, so what's the big deal?  First of all, the primary purpose of the Echo is to be a speaker.  It's a reasonably good wireless music player that you can put anywhere in your house and get good audio out of.  Even at our noisiest in the house, the volume and sound are just fine.  I'm sure audiophiles, bass junkies, and volume ravers will find it lacking, but for us, who just want a little background music while we do other things, this thing is perfect.

Alexa, define overkill.

Since the vocal interface is so easy to use, it's extremely convenient to turn it on and get music going.  Controlling it with your voice is also absurdly convenient.  I'm finally starting to dig into areas of my music library that I haven't touched in ages.  For a while there, music was just becoming something to listen to while working, and now it's coming back into my life, thanks to the Echo.  There's just so much more music around, and I love it.

Our kitchen and media/family room are right next to each other, so we put the Echo in there, making it accessible to the kitchen, and that's turned out to be an incredible choice.  Whenever someone cooks, they use the Echo timer, because it's just so much easier to ask Alexa (The name of the voice software) to set the timer than to figure it out on the microwave/oven.  Additionally, the "buzzer" on the Echo timer is so much louder and clearer, and you can hear it throughout the house, unlike the crappy buzzer on the oven.  Echo is also great for quick quantity conversions, switching effortlessly between cups and teaspoons or whatever, without having to do a lot of math.

Children are going to grow up without kitchen calculators
and this is the end of the world.

We live in a communal house of 5 adults, and sharing communal shopping lists and TODO lists can be hard, but with Echo, it's a lot more convenient than writing it on a whiteboard to forget later.  Just ask Alexa to remember it, and it gets added to the app for anyone to access and review.  Very easy.

Finally, the integration with Hue lighting has been a huge boon to us.  We use Hue lights in our media room, and Alexa makes it absurdly convenient to turn the lights on and off.  These days, we barely even touch the light switches, because we just ask alexa to turn the lights on and off, or to set their dim level.  It's surprisingly convenient and useful.

The real reason we love Alexa

A day in the life

So here's a common day of using Alexa.  We love the thing so much, we got a second one for our bedroom to control the Hue lights and music in there, so it's in the rooms of our house that we use the most.

Alexa wakes us up with an alarm, when it is time to go to work. "Alexa, stop alarm" we tell her, and the alarm is silenced.  After a few minutes of groggily waking up, we turn on the lights without leaving bed, "Alexa, turn on Master Bedroom."

While I grab my phone and start checking my emails and such, my wife starts getting dressed and checks the weather to see if it is cool enough to wear her new vest: "Alexa, what is the temperature today?"  Alexa gives her a full weather report, and she cheerfully goes and dons the vest she's been dying to wear.

After she leaves, I sit down at my desk and start to work.  I just recently purchased a bunch of music by Lindsey Stirling on iTunes, and imported it to the Amazon Music account, so I ask Alexa to start playing it. "Alexa, play music by Lindsey Stirling."  The volume starts out a little low, so I ask her "Alexa, turn it up."  It's still a little low. "Alexa, turn it up." Whoops.  Too much, "Alexa, turn it down."

I had actual discovered Lindsey Stirling because a friend had come over and wanted to try out the Echo, and asked Alexa to create a Pandora station around Lindsey Stirling.  That station has quickly become one of my favorite stations to turn on whenever I'm looking for music, so I finally broke down and bought it.  You can actually buy music straight through the Echo, but we haven't done that much yet.

Around dinner time, I head downstairs to bake some cookies.  "Alexa, turn off Master Bedroom."  While cooking, I need to use 1/4 cup of chocolate in my recipe, but all of my 1/4 cups are dirty.  Instead of cleaning one, I ask Alexa to do a quick conversion "Alexa, how many tablespoons are in a quarter cup?"  After making the dough, I put it in the fridge and set an alarm to give it enough time to chill. "Alexa, set an alarm for 9pm."

After that, we head out to dinner.  Upon arriving back, my wife heads to the family room to play some Minecraft.  "Alexa, turn on Family Room"  I head to the kitchen and start putting the cookie dough on trays to put in the oven.  After each one, I set a timer with Alexa, "Alexa, set timer for 10 minutes."  While they cook, I do other household chores, or go work on my D&D campaign on my computer.  The loud timer alarm always gets my attention no problem, and I head right over to the oven to take the cookies out.

After the cookies are done, I put some video game music on to help me think about D&D stuff until bed, "Alexa, play my video game music station on Pandora."  Several hours later, it's time for bed.  Before heading up, I make sure the lights are on upstairs, "Alexa, turn on Master Bedroom."  Then we head up.   The lights are a little bright, so we dim them. "Alexa, set Master Bedroom to 30 percent."  Jessie sets an alarm for the morning, "Alexa, set an alarm for 7:30am."  Once we are ready for bed, we turn the lights off, "Alexa, turn off Master Bedroom."

We close out the night listening to some soothing nature music from Amazon Prime Music. "Alexa, play Nature sounds for sleep on Prime Music."  And we drift off to sleep to the sounds of rain and thunder.

Persepolis Anomaly, Portland

This weekend, we traveled to Portland, OR for the Persepolis XM Anomaly.  Confused about what I'm talking about?  Go read this post: My introduction to Ingress.

As you know from my previous post on Ingress, Ingress is a game of virtual capture the flag or whatever that goes on all the time, all around you.  As the tagline says, "The world is not as you know."  However, four times a year, Niantic organizes special worldwide events that consist of a month of super intense gameplay, all at once, with hundreds and hundreds of other players.  Think of it as a sort of "world series" for Ingress, where both factions compete for MAJOR points, and for the opportunity to heavily influence the storyline of the game.

The series consists of a variety of games and events.  The Persepolis series had two "XM Anomalies" where players from around the world gathered in specific cities to fight over control of portals at specific times.  In addition, there was the "shard game," a sort of global soccer game.

The shard game started 2 weeks before the first anomaly.  In the shard game, special "shard" objects simultaneously appear all over the world.  Specifically, there are about 16 or so of them.  These shards represent fragments of the consciousness of one of the Niantic researchers analyzing the alien Shaper creatures.  Lore stuff.  The objective is to control this person's consciousness by directing the shards to your team's "goal" portal.  Players throw links to move the shards around, travel to remote locations, and do other wild stuff to gather the shards into their portal.  I actually got to help with one of the shards, helping to recharge the portal it was in while it was around.

The red thing is the shard.

It's fun, and we wound up winning the shard game 9-3, getting 9 of our shards into our goal, while the opposition only got 3 shards into their goal.

The "XM Anomaly" we went to is specifically an event involving hundreds of players all competing over portals in the area.  When I say it was big, I mean it.

I'm way off to the left.

The way this game works, 4 sectors are designated as "anomaly portals."  Every hour, on the hour, each sector is scored, once, in sequence.  So at 2pm, sector 1 is scored.  At 3pm, sector 2 is scored.  And so on.  The scoring works by basically counting how many portals are controlled, and how many fields are controlled.  Players battle it out for control of the portals so that, when they are scored, they own it and get the points for it.

Of course, Niantic doesn't let things be that simple.  First of all, the scoring doesn't happen exactly on the hour.  Instead, it happens at a random time between the hour and 10 minutes later.  So players have to fight hard for control of the portals for a full 10 minutes in order to maintain control and get their points, since you never really know when you've scored.

Did I mention LOOOTS of walking in between sectors?

Second, Niantic designates some portals are "volatile portals."  These special portals give the team 6 times as many points as a normal portal.  But which portals are volatile is secret information that teams have to work hard to find.  This time, there were 3 ways to find out which portals were volatile.  Apparently, in the middle of the night, on the Intel map, some of them would flash onto the screen for a moment.  The second, more standard way, of finding volatile portals is a series of deaddrops.  Each dead-drop is a hidden folder whose location is revealed by vague clues provided over social networks.  The third and final way of finding volatile portals is the "GoRuck" team.  This team of "special forces" engages in strenuous physical challenges, (think Tough Mudder type stuff.)  Once they complete these challenges, they get a listing of volatile portals to give to their teammates.

This creates some really interesting opportunities for counter-intelligence and intelligence.  Creating fake dead-drops and misinformation is a great way to confuse the other team and cause them to put too much effort into the wrong portals.  So all of this information has to get routed through special intelligence agents that have studied the information and can discern good information from bad.

That whole intelligence thing makes the game really interesting.  It really felt like we were some sort of virtual "troops on the ground" while there was this very large thing going on around us.  We were grunts in a single battle amidst a larger war.  We had generals, intelligence agents, covert operatives, etc. etc.  This really landed home when, just minutes after the game began, a huge field was created over the entire city, crossing over several states.  Players were not only battling it out there in portland, but in remote wilderness sites throughout the entire west coast.  Additionally, players all over the country had been given "keys" to our portals to allow them to help defend our portals from home. It was an incredible and wild experience to feel wrapped up in the middle of all of all these players operating all over the world to help us.

We called it operation "suck it"

At first, we were a little confused about what we were supposed to do, and how to do it, but it didn't take long to get into a groove of attacking, converting, and defending portals.  We were monsters at it.  At the 4 scoring (or "measurement") periods, we won half of them.  The first and second ones were ours, we lost the third, and the fourth was a tie.  Mind you, we were just one squad amongst over a dozen.  While we were focusing on those 3 little portals, other squads were focusing on their portals.  Overall, we wound up winning every single scoring period, coming to victory 4141 to 3196.

Alas, while we crushed it in Portland, we lost the overall Persepolis series by a mere 400 points, losing 22575 to 22146.  How?  Our satellite sites didn't do as well as we had.  That means that the Resistance gets to influence the storyline, and we don't.  Poo.  Ah well. :)

But seriously, congratulations are in order to both teams.  Enlightened and Resistance both did an amazing job, and I seriously had a metric ton of fun.  We might even end up on the Ingress Report, our Ingress news service!  :)  

But for now, we are sore and exhausted, but very very happy.  See you next time!

Nutech: Apple Watch and wearables in general

I got the apple watch.

Boom.

It's neat.

Here's what I think about it.

So I have two competing reactions to the watch so far.

1. The smart watch category is simply amazing, and I am shocked by how much it changes the way I interact with my phone.
2. The Apple Watch is overpriced for what it does.

Let's start with the negative reaction first.  Because it's shorter.

The Moto 360

I recently got the Moto 360 for a loved one for her birthday.  For those that do not know, this is the Android Wear device that's been out for a little over a year now.  It has basically the same set of features as the Apple Watch, with some notable differences.  Despite having a 33% larger battery than the Apple Watch, the Moto 360 gets a bit less battery life, probably due to the power hungry LCD type screen instead of Apple's OLED display. Additionally, instead of black minimalist UI, you have lots of full screen, full color notifications.

Whether you prefer one UI to the other is largely a matter of preference.  I like the bright colors and pretty imagery of the Android Wear UI, while others might prefer the sophistication and minimalism of the Apple Watch UI.  It's neither here nor there.

What gets me about this device is that it is literally a third of the price of the Apple Watch, despite having basically the same functionality.  And that's where I have an issue.  Admittedly, the Moto 360 is on sale right now, (Seriously, go pick one up before Friday!) so it's not an entirely fair comparison, but the Apple Watch's entry level options are still at least a third more expensive than the competition, and that's for the Apple Watch Sport, which doesn't look nearly as nice as those shiny Android Wear devices.

To charge such a premium, Apple needs to be doing a lot of things way better than the competition, and while I do see a lot of potential, what I've seen so far (in 2 days of use) just isn't enough to justify that premium.  It's definitely managing the battery better, and the things that are there work very reliably, but there's just not enough there to justify the cost over the competitors.  In the fall, when Apple finally releases the Apple Watch SDK, third party app developers should start bringing in amazing stuff, which should do wonders for improving the value proposition, but for now, they're limited to low quality "WatchKit" apps, which have poor performance and limited capabilities.

This is a watch, and frankly, it's just not that special compared to what else is out there.  Seriously, go pick up a Pebble or an Android Wear device if you want to get in on this space at this point in time.  I think you'll be happier with the money you've spent.

Okay.  That's out of the way.  Onto the good stuff!

*tap* *tap* Something is
happening in the world.

It is important to point out that what I'm skeptical about is the *value* of the Apple Watch.  "Is it worth $400+?"  And my answer is no.  But if you want to know whether or not the Apple Watch is awesome, I'm going to say ABSOLUTELY YES.  And I'm even willing to accept the conclusion of Consumer Reports that says that the Apple Watch is simply the best Smart Watch out there.  It's fantastic.  If you want the best, or if you don't mind blowing $400 on something like this, it's an amazing addition to the digital life.

I've only been using it for two days, but so far, the dang thing is helping me chill out and relax.  More than any other feature on the thing, the notifications really free me from my old pattern of constantly checking my phone to see if I've missing anything on social media, or in my email, or whatever.  Despite being in an 8 hour workshop today (on React.js, which is AWESOME!), I barely checked my phone at all.  Compare this with times I've been in a 1 hour meeting and felt the need to glance at my phone 2-3 times throughout the meeting.

The key is that the notifications are very very noticeable on there.  The taptic engine really makes it feel like it's just gently tapping your wrist to let you know that something has happened.  There's enough information on the notifications to quickly determine if what has alerted you is important or unimportant.  Most of the time? It's something I can deal with later, and there's no need to pull out the phone.  In fact, with the watch on, the only time the phone comes out is when I really want to *do* something.  Otherwise, the watch is more than sufficient for quick replies, quick information analysis, etc.

It is *freeing* to experience this.  I don't feel tied to my phone due to the "Fear of Missing Out" like I used to.  I feel comfortable and safe that I can go about my life without obsessively checking to see what might be happening in the world.  The loved one with the Moto 360 above?  Same reaction to her watch.

It's interesting, because one experience I get with it a lot is the desire for the watch to do *more.*  I want to be able to respond to emails, Google Hangouts messages, tweets, and more.  I want to quickly make a move in Words with Friends.  There's something about this interaction that feels like the future of mobile devices.  That more and more of our interactions will be moving to these tiny smartwatch screens, and less and less will be happening on our phones.  Because really, why bother carrying a big ol' phone around with you if you can do all of the same things on the watch.  If you want to do something bigger, like play Angry Birds or compose blog entries, use a phablet/tablet or Mac/PC.

I think even the smartwatch makers aren't quite sure what this category is yet.  They're testing things to see what we might do with these devices.  What we'll be asking for in the next generations of software and hardware.  It's very clear, as I use it, that Apple doesn't quite have the usual foreknowledge of how I will be using the thing.  But that's true of Android Wear as well.

It's a new field.  A new technology.  But mark my words, in 5 years time, everybody is going to have a smartwatch, and they'll be a lot different than what is out today.

My introduction to Ingress.

Sorry I haven't been writing in a while.  I've been distracted by life.  A few medical issues with my spouse and some intense work time has prevented me from doing the writing I'd like to be doing.  I'll get back to this, I promise.

I recently have gotten into the game of Ingress.  I am currently Level 7, and am looking to be leveled up by mid June for reasons I'll discuss later.

Ingress is not a game.

What is Ingress?

Imagine them with lasers

At a high level, Ingress might be described as "combat geocaching meets capture the flag."  Players physically go to various real world locations and click buttons on a smartphone or tablet running iOS or Android.  Using virtual in-game equipment, weapons, and other tools, they connect these real world locations to one another to control large areas.  Every few hours, the teams are scored according to how much population lives within the areas controlled by their color.  The team that has the most population coverage is declared the winner of that game period.

Leeroy would be proud.

Personally, due to the leveling, farming, and effectiveness being primarily a function of time spent rather than any particular skills, I'd say it is more akin to a real world World of Warcraft or other MMORPG.  I'll go into more detail about this comparison later, and discuss some of the strategies I've been seeing.

In-game Fiction

Ingress is very much a 21st century game, taking elements from MMORPGs, GPS games, augmented reality experiences, and ARGs (Alternate Reality Games.)  The storyline is very much taken from ARGs, as all of the science fiction game elements are presented as "not a game" and "very much real," much like a lot of other ARGs.  There's even major real world events featuring actors and such.

The core game concept is that in the wake of the CERN laboratory investigations into the Higgs-Boson particle, a new form of energy was discovered.  This energy was given the name "eXotic Matter" or XM, and apparently is intelligent, or possesses intelligence, or is related to intelligence, or something like that.  Further analysis showed that it is leaking into our world through portals from another dimension.  Curiously these portals are usually found to be at or around specific kinds of places or objects.  Public works of art, sculpture, fountains, are the most common site for a portal, alongside such things as postal offices, churches, and more.

Further analysis of these portals, and XM, shows that there are alien beings involved somehow.  They have been called the "Shapers," and much is speculated about their motivations.  It is this speculation that divides the game into two teams.  Upon logging into the game, players are forced to choose whether they wish to join the Enlightened, or the Resistance.  The former being interested in furthering humanity through the use of XM and working with the shapers to improve our species.  The latter believes the shapers to be invaders, and works to fight against them and to save humanity from peril.

AKA green vs blue, or "frogs" vs "smurfs"

Players from the two teams fight for their goal by using the XM to control the minds of the general populace.  By connecting three portals together using portal keys, players create  "control field" that influences the thoughts of the people underneath it.  This information is represented to player as "mind units" controlled, and the current state of the population, and which minds are controlled by which team, can be seen there.

Green/Blue is your favorite color.

And how do players do all of these fantastic things?  Well, apparently, a team working within Google, Inc. discovered that the information-like nature of XM allows it to be controlled by simple software that can be loaded onto mobile phones and tablets.  They have also developed a number of digital "tools" that can be used to control these portals.  But in good ARG fashion, there's a lot of mysterious stuff happening with the Ninantec folks.

How do you play?

I'm only level 7, so I'm just on the tail end of the leveling experience, but let me give you a run down of the basic actions you'll take in the game, and how it ends up working out strategically and such.

The basics

HACK: The first thing you're going to learn in the game is "hacking."  Think of this like the "gather berries" or "chop wood" action of most MMORPGs.  You go to a portal of either side, click hack, and get gear.  If you hack a portal owned by your team, you get extra gear.  If you hack a portal owned by the other team, you get AP (Basically, experience points) that let you level up in addition to a smaller amount of gear.

LINK: The next verb that's going to be of a lot of use to you is "linking."  One of the items you'll get when you hack is called a portal key.  You can only have one key per portal, but with a portal key, you can send links to that portal from other portals.  When you link one portal to another, you'll get AP and you'll make the two portals more resistant to attack.  Link three portals in a triangle, and you'll create a control field that scores points for your team and gets you lots of AP.  But watch out! Links may not cross other links, so plan carefully.

BUILD: If you ever come upon an unclaimed portal, or a portal that is not "complete," you'll be able to add resonators to that portal.  Like portal keys, you get resonators by hacking portals, and each resonator has a particular level.  Adding resonators to a portal gives you AP and raises the average level of the portal, which means more gear per hack for yourself and other players.  If you add enough resonators such that the portal has all 8, the portal is "complete" and can be linked to/from.

ATTACK: One of the items you'll hack from portals is an XMP Burster.  This is your primary weapon in the game, and the interface will show you how to fire.  Basically, you walk up to the portal, and hit the fire button, causing a wave of energy to burst out of your current location.  As it hits resonators along the way, it damages them, and, if you do enough damage, destroys them.  Early on, you won't be able to do too much to other portals, but once you hit about level 4 or 5, you'll find you can start taking down even the most powerful portals.  Destroy all the resonators, and you can claim it for your faction!  There's also a weapon called an Ultra Strike that does extra damage in a more limited range.

Intermediate play

There's actually quite a bit of things beyond these basic actions, some of which will be hinted at by the interface, some not.  Glyph hacking, XMP charging, portal charging, portal modding, and more provide a good sense of "mastery" as you get the hang of the basic game play.  I'd go into more detail, but part of the fun is discovering these capabilities yourself and learning about how they work.

One of the most important aspects of the game is playing with others.  At first, you may be tempted to play solo, or with a few of your friends, like you might do with geocaching.  While that certainly is an option, and the game in no way prevents you from doing it, the game shines best as the social game that it is.  In order to maximize the level of portals so that you get the most and best gear out of them, you have to have others help you build the portal.  The level of a portal is the average level of all of the resonators attached to it, rounded down.  But high level resonators, levels 4 and above, have a limitation on how many a single player can place on a single portal.  For example, each player may only place a single level 7 or 8 resonator on a given portal.  That means that to get a level 8 portal, you need 8 players to each add a resonator.

As you can imagine, this creates a lot of impetus for teamwork, and players get together to do farming events, building events, and more.  New players are anxiously welcomed and helped to level up so that they can participate in what one might call the "end game" content at levels 8 and above.

Advanced play

I've only begun to discover advanced play myself, but it is really interesting.  Shard games, anomalies, mega-farms, mega-fields, and more provide opportunities for some really interesting moments in the game.  Go play and talk to your team mates to find out more!

My review

As I mentioned, I see the game very much as a sort of "live action" MMO.  Unlike geocaching or some other activities, the basic activities in the game require little to no skill, just like an MMO.  Click the button at the right time, and you get the reward.  Your early capability is defined predominantly by how much time you've put into the game, not how well you wield what you have.  However, again much like with an MMO, as you get to higher levels, the strategies and decision making becomes more interesting.  You start to think about how to hide portals, how to protect portals, which portals to attack and which to leave alone.  There are tactics related to linking and attacking that enable you to develop ever more optimal behavior.  Yet, just like an MMO, these things are available, but not necessary, to the gameplay.  You can always fall back to the basic of "click button, get gear, make field" and never worry about the more intricate strategies you can master.

That's actually a good thing, when it comes to a game that promotes walking around a lot.  It's like they've taken the addictiveness of Candy Crush, but instead of just getting sore thumbs and annoying your Facebook friends with your high score, you're also getting to walk around, discover your city, and hopefully meet new people, as a reward for your gaming activities.  It's a light gaming experience that encourages you to do better things for your body and mind, in the real world instead of on a couch.

There are moments when playing the game where the real world drops away a little bit, and by walking, I'm just moving the little character on the cursor, trying to get close enough to the next portal to link it to the one I just left.  And then a noise pulls me back out, and I notice that I'm standing next to a beautiful piece of art I never realized was right down the street from where I live.

It's a great experience, and I look forward to discovering more about it.

The role of the opponent

When a person plays a game, solves a puzzle, or similar, a great deal of the fun comes from the challenge of finding the solution, or finding a better strategy, or what have you.  Artificial intelligence, heuristics, and randomness all make for interesting opponents at times, but some of the best challenges come from opposing another human mind.

A lot of people view this opposition as adversarial.  The opponent is the enemy.  In many sports, people shout taunts and insults at their opponent.  In private, they denigrate their opponent and talk about how awful or horrible they are.  The contest becomes a contest to determine superiority.  To win is to demonstrate one's superior intellect/strength/ability/etc.  To lose is to show weakness/inferiority.  Some will even break the rules of fairness, cheat, in the contest to achieve victory, just to be seen as superior by their peers, or to experience the thrill of victory.

I have never understood these patterns of thought.  For me, the delight in a game, a puzzle, a contest, etc. is all the same.  It is the experience of challenging myself.  Pushing myself to discover more about what I can do, what I can achieve.  Learning how to do even more than I've done before.

The adversarial view of the opponent strikes me as unpleasant.  When I play a game with someone, I do so to have fun.  They are my friend and ally, providing me with an opportunity to improve myself. To learn more about the rules of the contest and challenge me.  At no point do I take pleasure in winning or losing, but merely in the journey getting there.  The only "enemy" or "adversary" that I ever find in these contests is not my opponent, but myself.

I really like it when I find others of the same mind, because we both mess with the game, pouring over it to extract every bit of learning we can get to discover what we may have missed.  If someone wins, we simply undo the moves that lead there and try again, to see other possible paths we may have taken.  A single game might have half a dozen wins and losses in it for us, because we play to learn and grow, not to best each other.

It is a cooperative view of competition, instead of an adversarial view.  The opponent as friend and ally.  A fellow adventurer within the space of challenge and fascination.

But hey, this is just the way that I look at such things. :)