Polybius

By: Derek Yu

On: September 7th, 2007

Polybius is an urban legend – a mythical arcade game that supposedly appeared briefly in Portland, Oregon in 1981. According to the legend, the game was developed by a pseudo-company called Sinneslöschen (German for “sense-delete”), which was actually a front for the United States government. It’s said that men in black suits would come to collect “marketing data” while people played the game!

Players of Polybius purportedly experienced a variety of negative effects as a result of interacting with the game, including amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, and night terrors. Some went so nuts that they killed themselves… OOOooohhhhhh, scary!

Well, whether Polybius existed or not, it’s still pretty neat that some intrepid indie developers have created a fake version of it for the PC, based on internet descriptions of how the game played. And what is it like? Well, it’s basically a slow raping of your rods and cones disguised as a shoot ‘em up. Which isn’t really a condemnation of the game, since I find it to be fairly entertaining and plenty intriguing. Just don’t show this to any Japanese schoolchildren…

The gameplay involves rotating around a hexagonal base and shooting shapes that are launched from the base. On each of the outside “arms” is a circle with a number in it. In order to destroy the base and move on to the next level, you must reduce that number to zero by shooting certain special shapes that have numbers beside them… I dunno, read the readme for a full explanation!

This game really did kind of screw up my vision after a few playthroughs, so I would strongly suggest playing in moderation. Drugs may enhance your experience, or they may just cause you to freak out. Play at your own risk.

(Source: selectbutton.net)