Ingress First Saturday is a cross-faction event organized and run by local agents all across the globe. Usually entire communities would gather on the First Saturday of each month to play and socialize on public spaces. However, to comply with global social distancing guidelines that aim to ensure your health and safety, the IngressFS format has been changed to a virtual event.

If you want to organize an IngressFS@Home event, this post has all the requirements as well as best practices we’ve been able to condense from our own recommendations and your fellow agents’ tips. The points in Bold are most important and are required for a successful event.

Before the event

  • Just like in the traditional IngressFS format, you need one agent from each faction, willing to work together to put on a successful event.
  • With your co-organizer, coordinate:
    • A time for the event to start
    • The activities required to have attendees participation checked
    • The communication platform to socialize
  • You may also consider some extra activities not required for the badge:
    • Make puzzles
    • Have a Field Art challenge on Intel
    • Hold an IngressFS logo or art contest
    • Make Archetypes contest (e.g.: a music challenge for the Listener)
    • Share stories and shoutouts through COMMs
    • Have a hobby themed event
  • Register your city before the deadline, 7 days before FS! Please include the following in the event description:
    • Primary language
    • Participation requirements
    • Communication platform
  • A passcode will be generated based on the portals in your city.
    • For best results, your event’s Base Portal MUST be located in a portal dense area of at least 200 portals spread out within a 2km Radius
    • A higher density of portals in the area will result in a much more legible passcode challenge
    • If your portal location results in fewer than 70 unique portals in the puzzle, it will automatically be moved to a nearby city, at the discretion of the puzzle designers.
    • Base portals are locked in 7 days before FS.
  • Set up the Auto Score Sheet with your co-organizer and make sure it’s linked to your event on the Event Registration form.
  • You might benefit from preparing an infographic or some slides to guide agents through the event timetable, how to use resources such as the auto-score sheet or provide a FAQ doc.
  • Promote your event in local chats, channels and social networks.
    • To reduce the chance of attendees being disappointed by joining events that don’t get verified, We’ll be cancelling any events that do not have at least 10 RSVPs the day after registrations close.

During the event

  • Connect on time and make sure you have all your links and activities ready, and that the Leaderboard appears on the city’s Event Page.
  • When your event begins, share the Auto Score Sheet Google Form URL with your event attendees on the event chat.
    • We suggest you pin the message with the link but you can also share it twice, at the start and at the end, so that agents don’t have to backlog on your chat.
    • During the time you designate for stats submissions, you should check that responses are being recorded correctly and let agents know if there are any issues with their submissions. This way, wrong or corrupt data can be fixed.
  • Make sure the event attendees know that their participation in the event will only be checked if they fulfill the participation requirements of the event (which may include activities besides their in-game stats improvement).
    • Proceed with the activities that were announced for the event.
    • As opposed to regular FS events, Agents DO NOT need to hack any portals or gain any AP to be eligible for the FS badge.
    • Agents need to meet the requirements that organisers specify on the event page, submit their stats to the Auto Score Sheet, and have their name ticked by the organiser so that their name appears on the event page.
  • Make sure that your city meets all the requirements to be eligible for the FS badge.
    • Auto Score Sheet: If you haven’t already, link your Auto Score Sheet to your event by updating your Event Registration.
    • Portal Recharging Challenge: Collectively recharge at least 50k XM.
    • Passcode Decoding Challenge: Together solve the city passcode and submit it on the Passcode Challenge form.
    • Group Photo: Take a photo that complies with these guidelines.
  • Keep some record of the participation of agents to be able to check their participation later on or check their participation in the auto-score sheet during the event.

After the event

  • Take some time soon after the event ends to check the agents that fulfilled the event participation requirements on the Auto Score Sheet have all been ticked and appear on the event page.
    • The verified agents will appear on your event page with a verified tick.
    • Since there will only be 1 medal push, make sure this list correctly shows all agents with verified participation have the verified tick.
    • Agents that do not appear on your event page with the approved tick will not get the FS badge.
  • Post your event photo on a public social media platform.
  • Submit your city’s final scores either clicking the Score Submission link in step 11 on the Auto Score Sheet instructions tab or filling in the form on the Score Submission page.
  • Check your city’s verification status on your event page until it turns to Verified.
    • This will indicate that your city is eligible for the FS badge.
    • The agents whose participation was checked are also eligible for the FS badge.
    • Please tell your agents to not change their codename before the badge is pushed or they’ll miss out.