POLYBIUS
Urban legends always captivate us, weather its the legend that Mikey, the kid from the LIFE Cereal commercial, actually died after eating POP ROCKS and soda, or just another Bigfoot sighting. But, there's one urban legend you might haven't heard of, POLYBIUS.
The story goes as follows:
In 1981, the US Government commissioned an addictive arcade game as apart of a massive crowd sourced psychology project, presumably one relating to the Montauk or MkUltra projects. Late in the summer of 1981, the game supposedly hit a handful of Portland arcades as well as arcades in surrounding suburbs. The game is described as a plain black arcade cabinet, with the only artwork being the marque at the top, featuring the games title. the controls consisted of only a simple joystick, and white button. At the end of the night, men in black suits, FBI, CIA, MIB, the usual alphabet soup of government agents, would come and download high scores from the machines, supposedly used for research. The game play was a lot like Tempest, a game created by Atari and released in October of 1981. The game was also to have included puzzles and subliminal messages. For those who played, the game causes seizures, night terrors, amnesia, and in some completely extreme cases, even suicide and murder. about 1-2 weeks after the game was said to have been released, it vanished, like a spectre in the night
The first mention of the game, came in the year 2000, on Coinop.org, a site dedicated to cataloging arcade games. The game legend gained popularity over the next few years. In 2006, on the Coinop site, a forum post by a user who went by the name "Stevenroch" claimed he worked for Stevenroch" claimed he worked for Sinneslöschen, the company that supposedly created the game and helped create the game itself.
The game actually has some truth in reality. In November of 1981 in Beaverton, Oregon, at the Malibu Grand Prix arcade , 12 year old Brian Mauro was attempting to break the world record score for the very popular game, Asteroids . 28 hours, and 14 million points later, Mauro had to call it quits. According to his father, Joe Mauro "He didn't want to eat, and I wasn't going to force it on him...all he had was some cokes and orange juice" he told a Portland newspaper in 1981 following the event.
Another parallel to the effects of the game can be found with another resident of Beaverton, 14- year old Michael Lopez. Lopez had his heart set on beating a friends high score on Tempest. After playing for a while, he began to develop a migraine. A friend walked him home shortly after. While they were walking, Lopez collapsed on someones front lawn 4 blocks from his home. "my head hurt so bad", he said, "it felt like it was cracking open." following this, students at Lopez's school began to say that the game had driven him insane.
The "Men in Black" has roots in reality as well. During the summer of 1981, FBI agents had been investigating reports of gamboling and tampering with arcade cabinets. According to The Oregonian, on December, 9, 1981, after a year of surveillance a warrant was issued to a 48-year old arcade operator, who later admitted he was rigging his games up for gambling. By wiring the games with a “counter” to record how many games a player had accumulated for play, the arcade owner was illegally paying out money instead of points.
One other point that makes the story interesting, is it's setting of Portland Oregon. During the arcade craze if the early 80's, Portland was a major hub for game testings. Often, the games cabinets would usually be plain, and not have a name. If they did have a name, it usually wasn't the name that launched with the game.
Weather the game is real, or just internet fun, it's a very interesting story.
In 1981, the US Government commissioned an addictive arcade game as apart of a massive crowd sourced psychology project, presumably one relating to the Montauk or MkUltra projects. Late in the summer of 1981, the game supposedly hit a handful of Portland arcades as well as arcades in surrounding suburbs. The game is described as a plain black arcade cabinet, with the only artwork being the marque at the top, featuring the games title. the controls consisted of only a simple joystick, and white button. At the end of the night, men in black suits, FBI, CIA, MIB, the usual alphabet soup of government agents, would come and download high scores from the machines, supposedly used for research. The game play was a lot like Tempest, a game created by Atari and released in October of 1981. The game was also to have included puzzles and subliminal messages. For those who played, the game causes seizures, night terrors, amnesia, and in some completely extreme cases, even suicide and murder. about 1-2 weeks after the game was said to have been released, it vanished, like a spectre in the night
The first mention of the game, came in the year 2000, on Coinop.org, a site dedicated to cataloging arcade games. The game legend gained popularity over the next few years. In 2006, on the Coinop site, a forum post by a user who went by the name "Stevenroch" claimed he worked for Stevenroch" claimed he worked for Sinneslöschen, the company that supposedly created the game and helped create the game itself.
The game actually has some truth in reality. In November of 1981 in Beaverton, Oregon, at the Malibu Grand Prix arcade , 12 year old Brian Mauro was attempting to break the world record score for the very popular game, Asteroids . 28 hours, and 14 million points later, Mauro had to call it quits. According to his father, Joe Mauro "He didn't want to eat, and I wasn't going to force it on him...all he had was some cokes and orange juice" he told a Portland newspaper in 1981 following the event.
Another parallel to the effects of the game can be found with another resident of Beaverton, 14- year old Michael Lopez. Lopez had his heart set on beating a friends high score on Tempest. After playing for a while, he began to develop a migraine. A friend walked him home shortly after. While they were walking, Lopez collapsed on someones front lawn 4 blocks from his home. "my head hurt so bad", he said, "it felt like it was cracking open." following this, students at Lopez's school began to say that the game had driven him insane.
The "Men in Black" has roots in reality as well. During the summer of 1981, FBI agents had been investigating reports of gamboling and tampering with arcade cabinets. According to The Oregonian, on December, 9, 1981, after a year of surveillance a warrant was issued to a 48-year old arcade operator, who later admitted he was rigging his games up for gambling. By wiring the games with a “counter” to record how many games a player had accumulated for play, the arcade owner was illegally paying out money instead of points.
One other point that makes the story interesting, is it's setting of Portland Oregon. During the arcade craze if the early 80's, Portland was a major hub for game testings. Often, the games cabinets would usually be plain, and not have a name. If they did have a name, it usually wasn't the name that launched with the game.
Weather the game is real, or just internet fun, it's a very interesting story.
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