Polybius (urban legend)

Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game. It is an urban legend, or a thing that may not exist. The legend says the game was part of a government psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Playing the game was said to produce intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. The few arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.

This urban legend has persisted in video game journalism and through continued interest, and it has inspired video games with the same name. The legend may have come from on coinop.org, a website about arcade games. That had an article about it in 1998.

Etymology

The name Polybius comes from the Greek words "poly" and "bios", meaning many, and lives, respectively. Polybius is also the name of a historian and a cipher.

Description

Polybius was a shooter with odd gameplay, like puzzles. The only screenshot is the title screen. It was supposedly developed by a "Sinneslochen Inc." in 1981.