The last few months I’ve been playing Ingress, a Googleish augmented reality type game. It overlays another world atop our normal “mundane” world, where factions vie for control of key locations and areas. It’s cunningly crafted such that what you need to progress (“level”) in the game changes as you get higher level, requiring more teamwork (or at least the time to frequent select high value areas, if any exist near you).
Unfortunately if you don’t have leisure to hike it – regularly – to these areas, you can’t really progress beyond a certain level in the game. Even if you do achieve Level 8 by yourself without access to such areas, you really will be a second rate, underpowered Level 8.
And so with kindergarten starting this year and having to juggle a tighter work schedule to fit it in, it is with a touch of regret that I must bid farewell to Ingress. It was fun while it lasted, and while it was playable.
But no longer. I couldn’t continue it without breaking the covenant I made with myself when I started, that it would not impinge on my personal/family life.