New game mechanic idea: Puzzle Portals

HosetteHosette ✭✭✭✭✭

Note: This is a half-formed idea and there are probably lots of holes in it.

Like a lot of Ingress players I was a Geocacher for a while. It was a great way to explore, but I also loved trying to find the cache when I got there-- some of them were hidden very cleverly. I remember one hike where I spent an hour trying to find a cache in the woods, and eventually spotted a fake stump that had been attached to a tree. (I used to leave gemstones in caches as my calling card, and the coolest of the caches got small cut sapphires or rubies.)

More than that, though, I loved the caches that required me to work through a puzzle before I could identify the location. I was particularly tickled by a sequence of caches that required a lot of ingenuity to get to the end. One of the steps involved walking along the sidewalk on an overpass in an industrial area of Oakland, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time hunting for anything that could have been a cache or a clue. Eventually I looked down and saw the word MIDDLE painted on the ground in big yellow letters. When I got down there I found the coordinates of the next cache, and I was so thrilled that I felt like I'd just won the freaking lottery.

Ingress scratches the same exploration bug for me that geocaching did, but it almost completely lacks the thrill of the hunt-- all of the information is right out there in plain sight. I think it would be cool if the game had a concept of puzzle portals, something hidden that each agent would have to find for themselves. How would this work? I'm not sure I have a complete answer to this, but I envision a daily puzzle[1]. Solving the puzzle would give you the name of a randomly-selected portal that was near you[2]. Hacking that portal in the next 24 hours would give you and you alone a bonus gear drop. Maybe the portal would drop gear like it was a P8 of your faction for you for four hacks, regardless of its actual level?

I would be possible to build in Puzzle Streaks like the daily hack streak and have the 7th day of each streak give an extra gear bonus.

Anyway, that's my half-baked idea for a new game mechanic and it probably has holes that you could drive a truck through. The biggest downside is that it would require Niantic to provide daily puzzles, but there's a big community of players that they could tap to help create them.


[1] Yes, people would just publish the answers but there might be ways around that.

[2] "Near you" is tough to define. I would envision it being within roughly 1km of where you solved the puzzle, although there would have to be a way to expand the area if there was nothing nearby.

Comments

  • InvestigateXMInvestigateXM ✭✭✭✭✭

    I really like the idea, but as you say, there are a few holes in it. Mainly, assuming all puzzles are manually created, they'd only be available in English. There is a big chunk of agents that can't actually speak English, much less solve puzzles in it.

    What you also mentioned is that they'd need to be created daily. I think even with the community, it'll get stale after a while and eventually, either Niantic or the community will burn out and they'll stop.

    Both of these could be alleviated by making it an automated mini-game. Having a few puzzles as a base sounds repetitive, but have them "impossible" without hints, with hints dropping from portals/hacks/movement etc. This ensures that someone can't just open the game, enter the solution and grab the gear, thus promoting exploring and exercise. Having it automated means it can be translated and every agent can get a different one.

    Although maybe it shouldn't be a puzzle, but maybe a mini-game that is hard without the help of the pieces you gather. idk, my idea probably also has a ton of holes lol

  • GrogyanGrogyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    My experience is, that, while I personally like puzzles, making a mission series with passcode puzzles that with not super obvious answers, did not go down well.

    Did geocaching myself before Ingress came out.


    Nice idea

    Brian did mention the idea of bringing hidden caches to portals, reckon that this is likely the limit of puzzles most people would accept

  • I agree with Grogyan that, based on the unpopularity of passcode missions, puzzling only appeals to a subset of agents. But, the game has many pieces that appeal to some and not others. Bursting, fielding, missions - some people love one, and never do others.

    Let's assume it's possible to select portals "near" the agent... say, within 5k - but if that includes less than 6 portals, you get a message saying "Sorry, no puzzle available in your area." Try again from work, home, grocery store, etc.

    It couldn't be daily or it would get redundant. Every Monday? Third Monday? Then you'd have a week to solve it?

    Some personalize-able ideas - everyone gets a different challenge:

    • Given a description, figure out which portal it is, and hack it.
    • Given the name of a descriptionless portal, submit a description (that does not equal the title).
    • Given the last word in a portal name, figure out which portal it is, and hack it.
    • Given the name of a portal, go scan it at least once.
    • Given the name of a mission, hack its first portal. (You don't have to do the whole mission to get puzzle credit.)
    • Given the name of a portal, get your drone there.
    • Given the name of a portal with only one photo, go submit a new photo.
    • Given the name of a grey portal, capture it.
    • Given the name of a friendly portal, upgrade/mod it.
    • Given the name of an enemy portal, knock off a resonator or mod.

    I don't think we need another way to get gear, but I think people would play for a new badge!

    The disadvantage is that if you live in an area without many portals, you couldn't have much to do.

    The advantage to Niantic is that they could improve their database. And get people to try different aspects of the game. People might even submit a new mission with their 6 nearest portals, so they can get that puzzle someday.

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