Pokémon GO is proving to be quite popular in the world of smartphone gaming, and with good reason - it successfully combines location-based gaming with the thrill of hunting those iconic 'mon. However, the title hasn't become a global smash hit without having a solid foundation, and Pokémon GO owes a massive debt to fellow Augmented Reality app Ingress. Both are developed by the same studio - Niantic - and the Pokéstops and gyms you frequent in Pokémon GO are actually based on portals within Ingress.
That's not the only connection that the two games share, either. It has been discovered by Reddit user SkyriderRJM that Ingress can be used to determine the location of rare beasts in Pokémon GO.
Maps in Ingress have areas covered in white dots which denote energy hotspots, known as Exoitc Matter, or XM. It has been found that patrolling areas densely packed with XM results in a larger number of rare Pokémon encounters in Pokémon GO. The rustling of leaves in Pokémon GO can be taken as a sign that hard-to-find Pokémon are lurking nearby, but Ingress - with its constantly glowing XM points - is a much more reliable and obvious way of tracking them.
A word of warning if you decide to try this method - don't walk around with Ingress open, as you'll collect the XM and won't be able to see it until it respawns - therefore removing your guide to where the Pokémon may be hiding. The best thing to do is walk around with Pokémon GO running, stop to check Ingress and find areas dense with XM, then fire up Pokémon GO again and resume your journey.
Another catch is that if you're running Ingress and Pokémon GO at the same time - something that is pretty much a requirement for this strategy - then you can expect your phone's battery to drain incredibly quickly as both apps rely on a constant GPS connection and data transfer with servers. You might want to make sure you have some means of charging your phone's battery (such as a USB power bank) or - if you're lucky enough to own an Android phone which has a removeable power cell - a spare, fully-charged battery.
[source reddit.com]
Comments 12
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@Centibit Not so much as that Pokémon Go is built on the foundation of Ingress.
We could see many other games built on the same foundations in the future.
I read Pokemon too much. Need NX news to disrupt
Pokemon GO is practically Super Mario Bros 2 with how much its foundation was built from Ingress.
gen 1 baby! yeah!
Correction, an android phone that isn't the samsung s6 or note 5. They went all apple on us with no removable battery and no sd card
"don't walk around with Ingress open, as you'll collect the XM and won't be able to see it until it respawns"
This particular piece of info, while correct, is somewhat misleading. You only pick up XM until your scanner is full (as indicated by the blue bar on top in the left image) and you won't pick up any more until you use it, making it perfectly okay to keep Ingress open so you can look around. It doesn't take a lot to fill either. Notice the circular clump of XM around the portal? It's like that on every one and I'd estimate it taking around three portals worth of XM to fill completely.
edit: Better yet, if you hack the portal you can get materials which you can then recycle into XM, or better yet power cubes which have the exclusive purpose of filling your scanner.
Yeah, this might be the only way we can hope to track down rare pokemon if the freaking footstep tracker doesn't get fixed soon!
Kind of ironic that a few months ago I found Ingress had somehow been stealth-installed on my Android (I certainly had never heard of it, so it wasn't me that put it on there) and got annoyed, only to forget about it until recently, whereupon I realized what exactly it was and reactivated it for this purpose. That does not really excuse the stealth installation, but in hindsight it is amusing that it did end up actually having a use.
I also heard that their online map site for ingress can be utilized (sort of) to locate "portals", many of which (but not all) were reused as either Pokestops or Gyms. The Pokemon Go Subreddit has more info and resources related to that, although some of those resources are not currently working correctly.
inb4 ingress becomes #2 in the app store
I'm not reinstalling Ingress, been there done that and not going back! However, have you noticed the white floating dots in PKMN GO? Tip, that's where the high concentrations of XM in Ingress are and is the spawn points for 'mon. So really you don't need to install both apps at all. Furthermore it doesn't show you where to find 'rare' 'mon either it just shows where they're more likely to regularly spawn. Pls update the article NintyLife!
@NinChocolate
Rumours about NX or actual news?
I doubt we´ll get them before September, Pokémon GO is so popular at the moment Nintendo can keep NX stuff for themselves for several more weeks. Although I would like to know about it pretty soon since it´ll launch in March, not too many months for that moment.
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