Google’s top-secret Niantic Project has been picking up plenty of buzz lately around all the usual blogs . Since November 1st a Google-hosted investigation board has been stoking these fires with cryptic videos featuring ominous voiceovers that drop phrases like “There’s more to the world than you can see.” A poster featuring encoded text superimposed over photos taken near CERN is another early post on this “Sphere of Weirdness.”

An independent wiki has even been set up to help sort out the signal from the noise. Reddit has also gotten in on the act In a reveal sure to disappoint some (while alternately thrilling mobile gamers), Google has revealed that Project Niantic is in fact tied to the launch of a new location-based mobile game called Ingress , developed by Google itself.The game has been in development within Google for many months by a small internal group known as Niantic Labs, headed up by John Hanke. Hanke is perhaps best known as the CEO of Keyhole Inc., a mapping & technology company Google acquired in 2004. After the acquisition, Keyhole’s flagship product was renamed Google Earth and Hanke would go on to lead the group that developed Google Maps, StreetView and more.So, it’s safe to say he knows a thing or two about developing location-based apps and services on a truly global scale. But does this experience prime Google to create the true location-based killer gaming app?Ingress’s gameplay builds on the fiction established in the Niantic Project alternate reality game. There is a “world within our world.” Portals are beginning to open up all over the globe, but can only be sensed by a select few. These portals begin pouring out exotic matter. Is this the next step in human enlightenment, or are these portals something dangerous that should be resisted? Your answer to this question determines whether you play Ingress on the side of The Enlightened, hoping to awaken more citizens, or The Resistance, hoping to protect the population from these forces.These portals exist in real world locations like libraries, museums and other “interesting public spaces,” defined automatically by Google’s extremely extensive database of locations. In my demo, the Cupid’s Span art installation along San Francisco’s Embarcadero housed the in-game portal closest to me.

Gameplay revolves around capturing and controlling these portals for your faction before the other side can get their hands on it. Capturing a portal is as simple as being nearby and hitting a button on your phone. But the catch is that you truly do need to be nearby. Ingress uses your phone’s GPS to know if you truly are at the art museum you claim to be at.

Ingress’s in-game visuals harken back to movies (and classic arcade games) like TRON. Rather than present gamers with the standard bright and friendly Google Maps interface, San Francisco is instead represented by a dark grid of roads and buildings. Transparent vector graphics overlay the real-world map, representing the various portals and power nodes players are struggling to control.

Plenty of other apps like Red Robot’s Life is Crime, RocketChicken’s CodeRunner and “old-fashioned” Geocaches force gamers to get out in the world and explore. Hanke believes that Ingress’s elaborate storyline and more advanced strategy and tactical elements will allow the game to stand out.

The Niantic Project ARG that has generated so much buzz doesn’t end when the game launches – it isn’t merely a promotional vehicle for the game. It’s a true narrative that Google plans to continue running, adapting it to fit player actions in the coming months.

As for the tactics and strategy, although Ingress might make it simple to capture a nearby portal, capturing the hearts and minds of nearby citizens is a more complicated matter. The game features a complex system for taking over entire square blocks (and later, square miles) of territory for your faction. Once three portals have been captured by your faction, if they’re in range of each other and no enemy-controlled portals are nearby, the triangulated area is filled in with your faction's color. Teams of players can work together to box out entire neighborhoods Qix-like for their faction.The total score each controlled area contributes to your team is determined by the location's size and population density (another bit of data Google has easy access to). Hanke pointed out during my demo that taking over the sparse Nevada desert might be easy, but controlling a small portion of downtown San Francisco might contribute more to the cause.Every action players take, from hacking a neutral portal, to attacking an enemy-controlled portal, to reinforcing your own portals with items like shields, expends Exotic Matter, or XM. Gamers collect this XM just by moving through the world – a smart way to reward players for getting off their rear ends while preventing any one user from dominating the entire experience.When playing on your mobile device, your view is limited to just your immediate surroundings (although special items do allow you to peek at the game state in far away places). But Ingress also includes a web client that lets gamers see a more tactical view of what’s happening across the entire nation or even the entire globe. This information asymmetry is intentional – the Ingress team envisions a scenario where one player sits at a desktop, dispatching orders to “agents” in the field instructing them which portals to power-up in order to complete a link and take over a territory. Only someone in front of a deskop can see the big picture and know where resources are needed.After a brief demo of Ingress in action, I’m intrigued enough to want to further explore Google’s world within our world, but I’m not yet sold on the belief that the search giant has truly created The Next Big Thing. It’s a huge ask of gamers to get them to pack up and actually go somewhere. I’m not yet convinced that Ingress’s unique conspiracy-minded fiction and more tactical elements will be robust enough to allow the game to stand out from the growing pack of location-based games. But I’m willing to give it a shot.The Ingress App is available only on Android for now , with iOS to follow. The app is a free download, with Hanke insisting that it would remain truly free, thanks to integrations with real-world brands like Hint Water and Zipcar Can Google be the next major mobile gaming player? Will Ingress be the title to finally convince gamers to get behind loction-based gaming in a major way? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Justin is Editor of IGN Wireless. He has been reviewing mobile games since the dark days of Java flip phones. You can follow him on Twitter at @ErrorJustin and on IGN