The elusive Polybius may have been a real arcade game. However, it is more likely an urban legend. According to the story, the game was released to the public in 1981, but caused trauma for its players and disappeared shortly after.A new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon in 1981. The game, Polybius, proved to be incredibly popular, to the point of addiction, and lines formed around the machines, quickly followed by clusters of visits from men in black. Rather than the usual marketing data collected by company visitors to arcade machines, they collected some unknown data, allegedly testing responses to the psychoactive machines. The players themselves suffered from a series of unpleasant side-effects, including amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and even suicide in some versions of the legend. Some players stopped playing video games, while it is reported that one became an anti-gaming activist. The supposed creator of Polybius is Ed Rottberg. He developed the game for a company called Sinneslöschen (German for sense-delete), often named as either a secret government organization or a codename for Atari. The gameplay is said to be similar to Atari’s Tempest, a shoot ‘em up game utilizing vector graphics.
Or maybe not…
Thanks again to THIS GUY for his suggestion.
5 comments:
I was a Tempest wizard as a kid. I even got past the invisible level. When I hit the high score there was usually a flash of light, sort of like a camera flash. I thought nothing of it until one day at the arcade some guy handed me an envelope and said some guys outside told him to give it to me. Inside was a picture of me, aparently from the point of view of the Tempest game. There was also a cool-looking flier for a new game with a map to where it was. I was curious so I went. It was at warehouse in an industrial park near by. I played Polybius. I was asked to fill out a survey and come back the next day. I came back and was told they wanted to measure emotional responses so I hooked up to wires while I played. I came back the next day with friends and the warehouse was empty. I never heard anything about it again except in stories like this.
OMG you have to be freaking kidding me.. are you serious Mike!!!!????
Well, I am one to doubt EVERYONE'S word. It is my understanding that this game never existed. That the story and I'm sticking to it.
Josh is right. I'm just screwing around. :)
I am really good at Tempest, though.
It occurred to me that in the wake of messing around with my goofy story I neglected to actually comment on Josh's illustration!
Excellent work, Josh! Thanks for sharing this fascinating story too. I really like what you've added to this digitally - the concetric circles of "polybius".
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