Alex "Gus" Gustafson

Category: Games

  • The Ingress Storyline

    My only beef with the game of Ingress is that the story is very confusing. It’s neat in a way, though. The story develops less within the scanner application, more using YouTube and Google+ and other websites – the way a story would be broadcast in real life nowadays.

    That is, if anyone in real life used Google+ other than Ingress players.

    But because of that, until you really start digging it can be confusing to know what’s going on. The more Ingress Report videos you watch, you realize that it moves at a slow pace along with the live events, called anomalies. So you kind of get the hang of the current situation as you level up. But I have no idea what’s gone on in the last two years.

    An agent compiled this post of the Niantic-provided resources about the story and it looks to be very helpful, so I wanted to share it.

    https://plus.google.com/+SimonGreen85/posts/X2c6o4UVh8d

    I’m hoping to get ‘caught up’ on the story by the time the #Persepolis anomalies get going. There’s one in Nashville, TN that I plan to attend. Find one near you from this list:

    https://plus.google.com/+Ingress/posts/KMmrcfpZRdL

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  • Using Integrated Timer for Ingress on the Hunt for Sojourner

    If you play Ingress, I highly recommend also installing the Integrated Timer for Ingress (Android.) The default timers are helpful when farming, but I primarily use a custom 1440 minute timer to make sure I don’t lose track of my Sojourner badge.

    Only 22 hours left?! I need to hack!
    Only 22 hours left?! I need to hack!

    Tap on “24:00” at my last hack of a session, and I get a nice Ingress-themed timer. Day-to-day I have enough portals around me that I usually get a hack in the morning and evening without even thinking about it. But when I was on the road for WordCamp Dayton, I actually got down to less than an hour on my Sojourner time. This timer saved my weeks of progress.

    Big thanks to EpicGeek, a local level 16 who shared this tip with me originally.

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  • Dayton Chess Club

    Tournament room downstairs
    Books for sale
    Art at the Dayton Chess Club
    Art in the commons area
    Art at the Dayton Chess Club
    The club trophy, in use since 1959
    Art in the tournament room
    Tournament room downstairs
    Tournament room downstairs
    Skittles upstairs

    I mentioned yesterday that my trip to WordCamp Dayton was also my opportunity to visit the Dayton Chess Club. The speaker and volunteer dinner was hosted there and it was a lot of fun. I asked the staff if I could have a tour and they let me go downstairs to see the tournament room.

    The building is an old St. Vincent de Paul construction, so it’s cement everywhere. Very sturdy, and best of all very quiet. Even with the loud conversation upstairs in the common area, you can’t hear it at all in the tournament room unless folks are right at the top of the stairs. Very nice environment for chess.

    The walls have posters for top-level chess matches and chess-related artwork. Apparently there is a person in Dayton that owns one of the worlds largest collections of chess posters and art, and they keep rotating out a bunch of them for display at the chess club. Very cool pieces there.

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