Polybius is one of gaming's most well known myths. Polybius was an unmarked Arcade
machine spotted in an unnamed arcade in a quiet suburb of Portland,
Oregon, in 1981. The
game was described as strange and abstract, but "strangely addicting." Many recreations liken it to Tempest, another arcade
game. Strange enough, but then there were the side effects, such as nausea, vertigo, and even night terrors. Stranger still, men in black, supposedly
government agents, often visited the machines, giving rise to rumors of a government mind control program. A month later after the machine was first spotted, it vanished, along with any evidence of its existence. The only consistency in the story is the
name, Polybius.
Wild story, but it actually has some basis in fact. Around the same time and place the myth was
set, incidents of teens blacking out or experiencing similar side effects to the described symptoms after marathons of games such as Asteroids or Tempest, began to crop up. Also, back during that time, Arcades were often the haunts of drug dealers and other participants in illicit activities, resulting in common sightings of Narcotics officers during hours of operation. Finally, the
name springs from one of the codenames of Tempest while it was in its
beta stages, Polybius.
