IF YOU are out at any of Canberra’s iconic tourist attractions this Saturday, you may see groups of people walking around on their smartphones, wired up to external batteries, and talking about ‘portals’. As strange as it may have seemed, this is a common pastime for many Canberrans who are avid fans of the location-based game ‘Ingress’.

Canberra will swell with visitors from around Australia to participate in Mission Day; a volunteer run event in partnership with Canberra’s tourism board, Visit Canberra, and Ingress developers Niantic Inc., formerly of Google.

Ingress players are usually required to visit certain landmarks (portals) in the real world – sculptures, public parks, and famous attractions – to ‘capture’ them for their side, either the Resistance who seek to battle the forces attempting to enslave humanity, or the Enlightened who seek to evolve mankind to a higher level; Mission Day, however, is different.

“Agents only have themselves to beat during Mission Day,” explains James Gibson, co-organiser for the event.

“They have to visit as many of the twenty-four official sites chosen for Mission Day as possible within four hours to unlock a unique achievement in-game. Some of the sights include Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, and the National Arboretum.”

Niantic Inc. has had global success with Ingress with over 10 million downloads on Android and iOS platforms. Recently spun off from Google, Niantic has announced a $20 million partnership with gaming giant Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to develop Pokémon Go! which, like Ingress, will require players to get off the couch in order to play.

“I’m not quite sure how Pokémon Go! will be played – they’re keeping that secret pretty well – but if it’s anything like Ingress I’m sure we’ll see plenty of people playing and organising meet-ups like tomorrow’s” James said about the impending release, scheduled for early 2016.

Ingress is free to download and can be found in the Play Store or the App Store. The next large scale meet up is in Sydney on November 14. More details can be found on Google Plus.

Niantic Inc.: nianticlabs.com plus.google.com/+Nianticlabs/posts
Ingress Events: ingress.com/events
Mission Day Event: plus.google.com/events/cqans388ptq45vdu3a2022b009k