wtf is smurfling-lessons?

Smurfling Guide is a beginner-friendly mobile website that teaches new players how to play Ingress, a location-based augmented reality game. Think of it as an interactive orientation manual that walks a freshly recruited player through everything they need to know to start playing alongside their local team. It replaces an older version of the guide with updated content that reflects current game mechanics. The site is organized like an agent profile dashboard, featuring a hex-shaped medal case and a readiness score. It offers six categories called "ops," each containing six bite-sized lessons, for a total of 36 lessons. As players read through the material, their progress is saved directly in their phone's browser. There are no accounts to create and no analytics or cookies tracking their activity. It also includes a searchable glossary so players can look up confusing terms, with definitions popping up directly within the lessons themselves. This project is built for Ingress community leaders and the new players they recruit, often called "smurflings." When someone joins the game, they are typically overwhelmed by the complex mechanics and jargon. A local team lead can point a new recruit to this guide, knowing they will learn the ropes at their own pace. The resources page specifically helps these new players find and connect with their local community. The guide even caters to regional spelling differences, offering both Australian and US English versions with automatic browser detection on the first visit. A notable tradeoff of this project is its strict focus on simplicity and privacy. The entire site is pre-built and static, meaning it loads incredibly fast on mobile phones and requires almost no JavaScript to run. By storing progress in the browser rather than on a server, the creators avoid the overhead and privacy concerns of user accounts entirely. The code is open source, while the written lessons themselves are shared under a creative commons license, allowing the community to freely use and adapt the educational content.