The Brainwashing Government Arcade Game

[bornlivedie]

I remember this urban legend, can anybody find more info on it?

Its about an arcade game the government put out in the 80s, and it supposedly brainwashed people who played it, and apparently theres only 1 cartridge left...can anybody remember the name of this game/know what im talking about?

Thanks!

[ex infernis]

I remember this urban legend, can anybody find more info on it?

Its about an arcade game the government put out in the 80s, and it supposedly brainwashed people who played it, and apparently theres only 1 cartridge left...can anybody remember the name of this game/know what im talking about?

Thanks!

never heard of it

[Tommy]

Sounds like you could be talking about the game Polybius. We had a thread on it a while ago here.

Talking of games that brainwash, the ‘psychological illusionist’ Derren Brown hypnotized someone by having them play a zombie arcade game in a pub and then put him inside a room exactly the same layout as the game. Something to think about next time you're at the pub!

[SoLLiZ]

that would be fun. sorta like the holodeck on star trek for those on a budget.

[punish3ment]

i've heard about that game, the government sold them cheap so they would go quickly or something. but why would the government want to brainwash people anyway...

[bornlivedie]

^lol.

And thanks Tommy, thats what I was looking for, cheers!

[Alan W]

but why would the government want to brainwash people anyway...

Maybe there was a giant parenormal happening that alot of people saw, so the goverment did this.

Or this is just a hoex.

[Celumnaz]

It's possible.

Nervous system manipulation by electromagnetic fields from monitors

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?...&RS=6506148

Apparatus and method for remotely monitoring and altering brain waves

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?...&RS=3951134

These are some pretty old patents... technology's probably gotten a little better since these were issued...

[Loaf]

Polybius was basically a puzzle game that was made to introduce vector graphics to the market similar to the games later released like Tempest.

http://www.gamepulse.co.uk/index.php?modul...ge&pageid=7

On the 20th of March 2006, a man under the name Steven Roach made a post on http://coinop.org/, which tells the story of his involvement to Polybius, and how he hopes to 'lay it to rest'. He claims to have been working for a South American company which wished to promote a 'new approach' to computer graphics (probably vector graphics). The game was claimed to be very inventive and addictive, but the graphics - through mistake rather than design - were dangerous and prompted epileptic fits. The product was recalled, the subcontractors, Sinneslöschen, were disbanded and the program was lost.

[snuffypuffer]

Must... play.... that game.....

[nick_fury]

Ahhhh this old classic. Comes up every 3 or 4 months. It's not true BTW, not even a little.

There wasn't even a game called Polybuis, the 'screenshots' were just cooked up by someone to stoke the legend.

[hypnotist]

Ahhhh this old classic. Comes up every 3 or 4 months. It's not true BTW, not even a little.

There wasn't even a game called Polybuis, the 'screenshots' were just cooked up by someone to stoke the legend.

And of course you know its not true,

of course...

[nick_fury]

Link 1

And I quote

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

Link 2

Again:

On the 20th of March 2006, a man under the name Steven Roach made a post on http://coinop.org/, which tells the story of his involvement to Polybius..........On 26 April 2006 Duane Weatherall of Gamepulse.co.uk interviewed Steven Roach after Roach posted this message onto another forum. The Roach story contained a number of inconsistencies: some of it, indeed, seems to be sourced from Wikipedia

These in my eyes are two of the msot knowledgeable and trustworthy sources on Urban legends on the net. Polybius was a hoax. End of

[OlDrippy34]

These in my eyes are two of the msot knowledgeable and trustworthy sources on Urban legends on the net. Polybius was a hoax. End of

End of WHAT, man?! END OF WHAT?!

[Ahuizotl]

I heard say about an old game called Polybius that would drive people insane. Is this for real?

[Tooth_and_Claw]

I heard say about an old game called Polybius that would drive people insane. Is this for real?

no idea wanted to read the topic anyways

[justcallmefox]

Wikipedia is so great!

Here ya go, Ahuizotl:

Polybius is supposedly an arcade game, thought to be similar in genre to Atari's Tempest, and the subject of an online urban legend. The following is a summary of the urban legend:

the supposed Polybius title screenIn Portland, Oregon in 1981, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs, something of a rarity at the time. This game was called "Polybius". The game proved to be incredibly popular, to the point of addiction, and queues formed around the machines, quickly followed by clusters of visits from men in black. Rather than the usual marketing data collected by company visitors to arcade machines, they collected some unknown data, allegedly testing responses to the psychoactive machines. The players themselves suffered from a series of unpleasant side-effects—amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and suicide appearing as having been caused by the game in various versions of the legend. Some players stopped playing video games, while it is reported that one became an anti-gaming activist.

The supposed creator of Polybius is Ed Rottberg, and the company named in the urban legend is Sinneslöschen (German for sense-delete), often named as either a secret government organization or a codename for Atari.

The origin of the legend is unknown. Some think it originated as a usenet hoax by a curious character named Cyberyogi, whose real name is Christian Oliver Windler. Others believe that the story is a true urban legend—one that grew out of exaggerated and distorted tales of an early release version of Tempest which caused problems with photosensitive epilepsy. The game was reported to have caused motion sickness and vertigo, and was therefore pulled.

Several people had claimed to have a ROM of the game, but none of them have made this ROM available for public scrutiny, a "lack of hard evidence" situation typical of hoaxes and conspiracy theories. Indeed, there is even a lot of conflicting information about what the game is even like. Some sources claim it is a maze-style game while others describe it as an action space-fighter.

[Ahuizotl]

Thanks folks!

There are stories about men in black checking the arcade machines to collect the scores of the players. There's a confession of a dude who says he worked in the creation of this game, according to him, they were testing a new kinnd of graphic, but this new graphic would cause severe motion sickness. If I recall correctly a ship named Polybius sunk in the same day that Atari was created. I think this game is:

1: A real secret project that lets people insane

2: A secret project to make of people some soldiers

3: A graphic experiment that went wrong

4: Stories based in the early versions of tempest

5: Just exageratted tales of motion sickness

6: A total hoax, cause maybe the game never existed

Hey, I love the "master typist" pic in tooth_and_claw avatar.

[Celumnaz]

although this particular game turns out a hoax/disinfo... the technology is Definately out there imo (and in use). If you search for past topics on this, I've linked a couple of the patents before.

[Tommy]

Edit - * merged recent Polybius threads.

[Lord Umbarger]

Has anyone ever seen a screen shot of the actual game, not just the intro screen? BTW, what are "vecter graphics"?