I admit, I'm not a nerd or geek when it comes to games. There's this one game that I think we all know, and it's called polybius. Also, there were a lot of sightings from central oregon in mid 1981, and some in other plaes. You could at least recall what it did to kids at the time with seizures and stuff, but I was wondering if any of you, played polybius in 1981, and what could you remember? I'm actually taking this seriously, as i want to uncover the full truth of polybius. So, did you play it?
Polybius was before Polybius existed. The name itself should be this particular urban legend's giveaway. Quoth Wikipedia: Emphasis mine.
I was 5 in 1981, but I don't think I had been in an arcade by that point. The only games I recall seeing from that time were in other places, like restaurants or in Sears I would become big into arcade games in the following years, but I don't remember ever seeing Polybius.
I prefer the game with no name... Rumour has it that you have to finish the game within seven days or something bad will happen. Back in my day, we only had a weekend and your game might get erased.
I knew a kid whose uncle worked at Nintendo and he said that they were about to release an NES version but they had to ship all the cartridges back to Japan to be destroyed.
It's an urban legend from the late 80s-early 90s. There never was an actual game until around five or so years ago, when someone made a real version, based on the information in the original legend. It's basically just a super flashy version of Tempest. On a related note. Another fake video game that got turned into a real one, thanks to the internet is Starfighter. The arcade game from the movie The Last Starfighter. Rogue Synapse, the guys who did it, even uploaded instructions for building your own movie accurate arcade cabinet for it. Here's video of someone playing one in an arcade.
More like late '90s to early '00s. It draws from urban legends based on real events in the '80s and '90s (and maybe a little from The Last Starfighter), but the specific name Polybius never turned up before the very late 1990s. It's really more of an early creepypasta than a proper urban legend, since it wasn't commonly known until it got spread around on the Internet. EDIT: The legend also probably draws from Endorfun (a.k.a. Cu-On-Pa) which was a real game from 1995, albeit decidedly less sinister. It briefly stirred some controversy before it was released, due to claims by the developer that it would use new age subliminal messaging/hypnosis to make the game more addictive, but also to make players feel happy and reinforce positive thinking. Then people calmed down and forgot about it when the game was released and the subliminal messaging gimmick didn't really do anything. Like the supposed Polybius, Endorfun was an abstract geometric puzzle game (though without the shooting aspect). Like the bogus promises for Endorfun, Polybius is claimed to have been extremely addictive and possibly use subliminal messaging. Also, that Starfighter cabinet is badass.
it would be two years before i was born. i had no knowledge of this until i got the internet at home in 2002. i find it spooky. riiiiiight... <_<, >_>, o_o (runs away)
Let me guess, your friend's, brother's, aunt's', maid who has a kid played it back then and went insane right?
obviously no, i stole Doc Brown's time machine, went to June 16, 1981, played it for an hour, came back, had a nightmare, and then went insane. or something like that... sometimes i remember somethings in one way and sometimes remember things in another way. if i have to remember things, i like it to be multiple choices.
