Soon, the players started to experience disturbing symptoms nausea, migraines, memory loss, nightmares, and in some retellings even "an inability to become sad". Kids lined up to play the strange game, with mysterious men in black suits either standing by and taking notes on clipboards, or coming by after hours to collect the data direct from the console. Often, the game is described as playing like the 1980 classic Tempest, but sometimes the gameplay itself isn't actually described.Įarly versions depict Polybius as a vague government experiment (presumably related to mind control, in the same vein as MKULTRA and similar experiments) and/or an extraterrestrial artifact (compare the plot of The Last Starfighter). The main ingredient is the game itself, a seemingly-innocent cabinet that popped up and hides sinister motives, from subliminal messages to more supernatural activities. The legend of Polybius is, as legends tend to be, rather amorphous, and there are many different versions of the tale.
It originated as an urban legend, first documented in February 2000. Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game, allegedly published by the shadowy Sinneslöschen note very bad German for "Sense-Deletion" or "Sensory-Extinguishing," or alternatively, "senseless" corporation and given a limited release in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon.