Polybius Game Urban Legend Resurfaces

Eric Greif writes "I've just discovered information on an odd arcade game from 1981, only released in some backwater suburbs in Portland, Oregon. This game was called Polybius and was apparently featured in a recent article in GamePro magazine. This game boasts strange effects on the players of the game, such as various forms of amnesia, as well as behavior and mood changes." GamePro say that " Credited to a company called Sinnesloschen [German for 'sense-deleting'], Polybius... was an abstract puzzle game... one arcade owner claimed that black-coated gentlemen would periodically come to collect data - but not coins - from the machines." Snopes.com call Polybius out as a hoax, correctly, but after all this recent attention, does anyone know who devised this elegant spoof, and when?

i started it...

[rj-eleven]

...try and disprove it.

collecting information from arcades...

[evilWurst]

Reminds me a little of the movie "The Last Starfighter".

I kind of doubt Pac-Man is a training simulator for anything, though. :)

I think I have played it...

[FluxCapacitator]

although I don't recall where or when.

I remember that!

[GoRK]

Oh yeah! I remember that game.. it rocked. The best part about it was that it was free to play. It wasnt very hard, but there were all these weird transitions that played between levels. The game existed for sure, but all this talk of mind control isassssofo nngggrrrrff afsfsffasfaff gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg ggggggggg gg ggggggggggggggg ggggggggggggggg

About "Sinnesloeschen"

[Nice2Cats]

This is in fact German, though it does sound somewhat strange. Die Sinne are in fact the senses, and loeschen is to delete or clear. The oe is really a umlaut (two dots above the vowel), but I can't get Slashdot's US-centric rendering machine to display it. What is usually a sign of correct German is when the transcription of the umlaut is done correctly like this, which is rare enough -- compare all of the ubergeeks who should really all be uebergeeks. Also, it is not California uber alles, but Kalifornien ueber alles. But I think Mr. Schwarzenegger will get that right.

Anyway. The "s" in the middle of the word is a Fugen-s that connects word parts the same way a dash does; usually, if you use a dash, you don't need an "s", though the rules can be complicated. In theory, you have a legal noun now (das Loeschen), but you probably would say die Sinnesloeschung instead. It isn't exactly wrong this way, but is sounds strange.

If they had wanted a cool name, they should have gone for Sinneserloeschung, which is more poetic (IMHO) and implies that the senses slowly die. Or, of course, there is always Sinnestod, the "death of the senses" -- I'd have gone with that.

Re:So where is it???

[BTWR]

Dude. Polybius is 100% true. I'm serious. My brother's wife's aunt's roommate's son played it once.

Polybius's Business Model

[tansey]

1. Make customers have amensia and forget the game
2. ?
3. Profit!

Re:Polybius's Business Model

[ronfar]

To fill in the question mark, just see the movie Memento. To the best of my own memory (I'm too lazy to hunt for a script):

Motel Clerk: Business is slow, so when I told my boss about your condition he said, "Try to rent him another room."

Memory Guy: So how many rooms am I booked into in this s***hole, anyway.

Motel Clerk: Just the two, for now.

Memory Guy: Well, thank you for being so honest about the way you are ripping me off.

Motel Clerk: No problem, you aren't going to remember it anyway.

Memory Guy: There is such a thing as too much honesty.

Re:collecting information from arcades...

[Kirby]

You say that now, but we'll see who survives, when the ghosts finally attack!

Wait one second...

[Xerxes of Zealot]

"This game boasts strange effects on the players of the game, such as various forms of amnesia, as well as behavior and mood changes"

Wait...I thought the name of that game was Everquest?