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Thread: Polybius

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    Default Polybius

    After reading GAMING URBAN LEGENS and hearing about Polybius, I was wondering, has anyone actually seen it?
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    I have read a couple of times this is just an urban myth. I don't know anyone who has played it though.
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    Default Re: Polybius

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    There is a (presumably fake) titlescreen image on the net somewhere. FYI

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    Quote Originally Posted by Raccoon Lad
    There is a (presumably fake) titlescreen image on the net somewhere. FYI
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    this topic always interests me on every site i see it on... i once heard of this game that put you in a coma......didint hear anything else about it but that....im positive its fake though...but all the myth stuff is interesting........who here would play polybius.....cuz i sure as hell would, that would be cool

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    does polybius actually stand for anything, or is it a made up name? this one myth has gotten more written about it than anything else i have ever seen. i always figured it was a super crappy game that was made in incredibly small numbers, and so some people made up a story about this game. i mean, if i was creating a game, i would want everyone to know about it, even if the people thought that the government was using it. i have seen a few posts by people saying that if it did exist, they would at least want to try it. i know i would.

    honestly, i think at one point, there really was an arcade game called polybius, but was made in extremely small quantities (very small game company with not much money=a very slim few arcade machines). and think of it this way, around maybe 10 years earlier or so, people said that elvis was controversial because he used his hips too much when he danced. so if parents saw some kid putting a quarter into a super boring game and they just sit there with a completely blank look on their face (lets face it, we have all played a super boring game and looked that way) a parent could say that this game was brainwashing their child. and then the skeptics come in and try to make up a reason why a game is brainwashing a kid, and then they point to the government. the people that come to take the money out of the machine happen to be dressed a little bit nicer that day (i am not even talking about black suits, i'm talking about just kind-of nice) and skeptics stretch it to men in black suits that work for the government. and why has nobody actually seen a real polybius cab, because of what i said earlier, the company was small, made no money, and no arcade or anywhere is going to have a cab sit in there that just collects dust.

    where does this polybius story originate? anybody know? i bet if you look at where it originated, you will find mutliple small game companies, and go from there. i think polybius was a real game, but that title screen pic is obviously fake. i just think that it was a very boring game, and because of the time frame when it was released, skeptics and parents hopped on it and took it too far.

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    Quote Originally Posted by neotokeo2001

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    Polybius was not and is not real.

    -- Z
    Can you prove this?

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    That pic is oviously fake.
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    saying skeptic os probably the wrong word, but the thing is, it makes perfect sense. i actually put little to no thought into what i wrote. you may say it doesn't exist, and i am not saying it does, but you have about as much proof as i have about its existance.

    how many super crappy arcade games came out in the eighties that you have never heard of? i bet there are more than 1.

    it is very possible that polybius was some game that was super boring, a parent saw everyone else playing pacman and asteroids having a blast, and then their kid sitting there, looking half dead playing some game.

    i am just trying to use my own reasoning as to why people would think of something dumb like that, and you have to admit, what i am saying does not sound all that far-fetched. remember when there was a big deal about music making people worship the devil and crap like that, well it is the same principle. some parent taking one small thing way too far.

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    Quote Originally Posted by zmweasel
    The burden of proof, in this case, would be on the people claiming Polybius exists. Despite that, however, anyone with common sense and healthy skepticism will quickly realize that Polybius doesn't exist. Occam's Razor applies equally well to crop circles and nonexistent coin-ops.

    -- Z.
    Additionally, the technology (of psychology, not processing power) to produce a "game" with these supposed effects is unheard of, even today. Such a machine would be revolutionary in the field.

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    This game had a very limited release, one or two backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland. The history of this game is cloudy, there were all kinds of strange stories about how kids who played it got amnesia afterwards, couldn't remember their name or where they lived, etc.

    The bizarre rumors about this game are that it was supposedly developed by some kind of weird military tech offshoot group, used some kind of proprietary behavior modification algorithms developed for the CIA or something, kids who played it woke up at night screaming, having horrible nightmares.

    According to an operator who ran an arcade with one of these games, guys in black coats would come to collect "records" from the machines. They're not interested in quarters or anything, they just collected information about how the game was played.

    The game was weird looking, kind of abstract, fast action with some puzzle elements, the kids who played it stopped playing games entirely, one of them became a big anti videogame crusader or something. We've contacted one person who met him, and he claims the machines disappeard after a month or so and no one ever heard about them again.

    Until the ROM showed up.

    Here's what we've found so far:

    * Found english strings "insert coin" and "press 1 player start" and "only" - looks like a 1 or 2 player game.
    * Text in the game says "(C) 1981 Sinnesloschen


    'Atari test marketed the game in Portland suburbs of Beaverton and Hillsboro. As a joke, Atari used the pseudonymous "Sinnesloschen" during the beta phase, a reference to long nights of coding without sleep and lots of Heineken. Atari cut the beta phase short after several complaints that the rotating mazes and flashing backgrounds made players disoriented and nauseous. Vertigo and photosensitive seizures were probably the main culprits in the game not being released officially.'... sure I won't play that game.



    -------THE REAL STORY-------

    No arcade game called Polybius induced amnesia, caused gamers to wake up screaming in the middle of the night, or attracted the attention of mysterious "men in black" who periodically came to "collect records" from Portland-area machines. This one is just a gag someone invented several years ago which has now become enshrined on the web, another version of the conspiracy rumors involving military intelligence agents visiting arcades to collect stored information from game consoles which date to at least the early 1980s. (Back then we were supposed to watch out for men in black who came around to take down the initials of high scorers at Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Defender.)
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    Quote Originally Posted by SegaAges
    does polybius actually stand for anything, or is it a made up name? this one myth has gotten more written about it than anything else i have ever seen. i always figured it was a super crappy game that was made in incredibly small numbers, and so some people made up a story about this game. i mean, if i was creating a game, i would want everyone to know about it, even if the people thought that the government was using it. i have seen a few posts by people saying that if it did exist, they would at least want to try it. i know i would.

    honestly, i think at one point, there really was an arcade game called polybius, but was made in extremely small quantities (very small game company with not much money=a very slim few arcade machines). and think of it this way, around maybe 10 years earlier or so, people said that elvis was controversial because he used his hips too much when he danced. so if parents saw some kid putting a quarter into a super boring game and they just sit there with a completely blank look on their face (lets face it, we have all played a super boring game and looked that way) a parent could say that this game was brainwashing their child. and then the skeptics come in and try to make up a reason why a game is brainwashing a kid, and then they point to the government. the people that come to take the money out of the machine happen to be dressed a little bit nicer that day (i am not even talking about black suits, i'm talking about just kind-of nice) and skeptics stretch it to men in black suits that work for the government. and why has nobody actually seen a real polybius cab, because of what i said earlier, the company was small, made no money, and no arcade or anywhere is going to have a cab sit in there that just collects dust.

    where does this polybius story originate? anybody know? i bet if you look at where it originated, you will find mutliple small game companies, and go from there. i think polybius was a real game, but that title screen pic is obviously fake. i just think that it was a very boring game, and because of the time frame when it was released, skeptics and parents hopped on it and took it too far.
    polybius is actually a name of a hero from greek mythology. i'm not sure why that was chosen though.
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    The current Retrogaming Times has a bunch of Polybius links. One of them
    claims the game was on an arcade order form from the day. I will believe it
    when I see it One of the stories is that it was beta name for Tempest.

    If it was anything real this game was either a beta name for some game or just plain vaporware and some jokester got this story going during the early
    days of the internet. Beta testing is the only thing that would fit any of these so called stories. Limited release with company techs checking it out.
    But its most likely a pile of B.S. since all these stories are so vague about the
    actual gameplay.

    Were there any game companies based in Portland in the 80s?

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