If you beat polybius. A brown lizard alien shows up at your door and replaces you with a robotic clone so that you can help him fly a spaceship and save the galaxy. Because you're the only one with the reaction time to use the death blossom.
I'm almost completely certain that the CoinOp entry is what's known as a "copyright trap", albeit one that got picked up by users and turned into part of an urban legend. The Ahoy video mentioned that the guy said it had "very particular wording". A copyright trap is a fake entry in a database that if it shows up in another database proves that your database was stolen because "well, what's it doing there".
@@orvilleredenpiller338 I think it's an ARG that didn't get any traction until after OP was bored with it after no one picked up on it. The Ahoy video sounds like something game theory would cover, but then instead of people playing the game as intended it became some big urban legend.
Polybius was made up by the author of the Coinop page. There is 0 reference, mention, or source of any kind prior to the Coinop entry. All other sources afterwards lead back to this origin or are bogus 'anonymous' source. It's 100% debunked at this point.
You're crazy if you think the CIA didn't do this sort of thing especially at that point in history. Go read some declassified documents then imagine what is still classified today. Search some declassified Soviet documents on mind control and psy research. Of course they did it. Maybe it wasn't called "Polybius" but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Listen to the Mk ultra trials or read the books by the lady who won a lawsuit, Kathy O'brien. Flicker rate, flashing colors and patterns, pushing a button to recieve a dopamine hit, electronic sound waves that hard wired to create positive or negative emotions, testing sites... it's a mind control scientist's dream scenario
I believe polybius is real, but it isn't an arcade game. I think it's an arg that everyone is misinterpreting but I'm not smart enough to figure it out, everything about it just seems like something game theory would cover, but no one has.
What did this change about anything? What did your cypher research produce? What is your new data? What is your response to the data collected? Why is the Coinop post littered with highlighted words? If this was simply a collected retelling, that's fine, but disingenuous bait headlines are weak.
Yeah pretty much clickbait, the article was just a rehash of old Polybius info with some word salad about a game acronym that was already explained elsewhere by the developers of the cancelled akka arrh game. Not watching any more from this channel.
Even as a retelling this video fails, it just makes a bunch of disconnected statements that go no where, and then there is that confusing nonsense towards the end about a "cipher" and chat GPT... This video is idiocy and probably both clickbait and ragebait, also her style reminds me of iilluminaughtii... which is never a good thing. Also all her videos before she starting doing this sensationalized retro gaming stuff look to be paid advertisements for Arcade1up products and chinese hand helds
@@RevVoice2 to add that this is one of the dumbest urban legends. Ancient arcade game that can "hurt you"? Wtf. Like we don't have other contemporary games to know the possible tech level, especially now in the age of emulators. The only drama is what RUclipsrs created with their narration. Now if you told me that story back in the 80s I might have been intrigued, but that's because I was in elementary school and all things computer and video game related seemed like magic to me.
Some Key points: Akka Arrh was an Atari game; Any prototypes that they released would have been installed at Golfland USA in San Jose California. Blaster was by Williams, a Chicago based company. Blaster was fairly successful and had mainstream distribution. Many of Williams prototypes would be installed in area arcades, the most common arcade for their prototype cabinets was Gala Lanes/Galaxy World North (Carol Stream IL.) which was one of my haunts back in the day. A lot of arcade manufacturers would install prototypes there: Bally, Williams, Stern, Midway, Rockola, Chicago Coin... Lots of arcade manufacturers were based out of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. I've always considered Cube Quest as the primary contender, as it was rare, trippy, and the only game manufactured by Simultrek (sounds similar to Sinneslochen) They went bankrupt, so a lot of the cabinets disappeared shortly after installation. There is a surviving Atari Army Tank Simulator cabinet that was rescued from a military base (they were discarding it, they had moved it to a lounge on base years later, and it had stopped working) it was restored by the person who took possession of it, and the ROMs have been dumped for preservation. The army had approached Atari to make it based on their Battlezone game, and this is where the Star Wars yoke came from: it was based on the Gunner's control the army had requested for the simulator cabinet. Doc from Rogue Synapse is a great guy; Had many chats with him a while back. He makes the games as a hobby and does everything all on his own, which is pretty impressive. Great video! Very thorough analysis.
I’ve seen one in real life. I always thought it was a strange name for a game. And that black background with the blue / Green font sticks out in my memory. It was at a flea market in TN that had tons of old arcade cabinets locked up and not for sale in an area in the back of the building. This was over 20 years ago.
I doubt I'm the first to mention this, but the whole story has always been quite similar to a segment from the 1983 horror anthology called Nightmares. It was titled the "Bishop of Battle" and starred Emilio Estevez.
I swear I remember Polybius in the Kennywood amusement park arcade in the 80s. When I later saw the Simpsons gag, I was unaware of the legend but still recognized the name, and remarked the cabinet was wrong. The funny bit was, I never saw the machine operating. It always sat in a corner collecting dust.
'Polybius' as _THAT_ specific game, may not have existed. But the fact is that for Centuries, nay Millennia, the Arts have been known to be the best way to bypass the Rational mind and insert messages (usually Propaganda) directly into the emotions. Videogames, because of their interactive nature take that ability to manipulate to a new level. Virtual Reality takes it even further still. SO much so that there has been a company out there called 'AppliedVR' that uses specially designed VR software to treat both physical pain and emotional issues. In many cases, they have reported _PERMANENT_ changes through the use of their programs. Now. If People think this concept will never be, or has never been, used for flat-out wicked purposes, decades ago, they're just being intentionally ignorant. Control of people is the raison d' etre for many in power.
BRAVO! I’ve always thought it a hoax, but have always been fascinated nonetheless. I tried researching it a while back, but you went further and so much better. As far as I’m concerned, you just beat Polybius’s final level. You’ve earned a like and a new subscriber.
The game was in a Vancouver arcade. My cousin and I played it, it had two player mode. It was a game similiar tempest with graphics and vindicators with it's control, except you had the full field to move your ship around in, and it was a joy stick w/two buttons. Shoot, and bomb. We never got passed level 3. I was six he was five, it was 1986.
@@trolojolo6178 or he's lying or misremembering. Human memory is notoriously unreliable. This holds no evidentry value whatsoever, especially given the complete abscence of evidence of the game prior to 2000.
I learned of Polybius from GamePro, and I have a plausible belief, along with a concept for how it would work if it were a military experiment, to be used with a sci-fi story i'd want to make around it. My plausible explanation was that it was an early tempest beta where the board rotated and the player ship stayed at the bottom of the screen. This could result in motion sickness that would make some of the symptoms reported likely. My fantasy military experiment would be to have a game that was a tempest -like tube with mazelike paths. Using binaural beats (tones and waveforms intended to create emotional and physiological responses in the listener) in combination with strobing colored lights to induce a hypnotic state during the first board. Each sequential board would try to "synchronize" to areas of the brain with the maze route pattern and the binaural beats, and once the game is fairly confident the player is synchronized, would change the maze layout and binaural beat pattern to change the mind from a pattern matching mode to a "rewrite" mode, in hopes to change the target's mental behavior to whatever the programmers wanted. It's fantastical, but technobabble enough that it makes good fiction.
I do believe there was some type of truth in this myth in different clones, bootlegs and malfunctioning games, and tests that came out in those years. I remember once years ago seeing an old Pacman clone with a broken flashing Pac and warping ghosts. In the 90s we had dozens of Street Fighters II bootleg clones that did weird things For example in Spain there was an arcade game called "The End of Times" that was lost for more than 30 years and was found and restored.
The game was real, my theory is it was popular enough on release a few players had epilepsy triggered, and then the arcades just pulled the game. It was a two player co-op game. You were a tank of some sort in a vindicators like level, but the graphics were wire/vector graphics except for powerups, powerups were raster looking missiles/guns/life bonus. Three levels of guns, max two bombs. My cousin and I played it in Vancouver, WA. 1986.
Game studios, if they were large enough, definitely did on-site testing of games. I used to play at arcades owned by Capcom, and they were always testing new Capcom games there. This was a little later than the Polybius era, though.
I can't speak for "Polybius", but "ZIP/ZAP" was a colored vector game that I played for months in early 1982 at Farrell's. Can't find anything on it but it definitely existed. "Spiders" is a game that at least some people remember, but I only ever played it at a Pizza Hut & that's the only place I ever saw the game despite the 100's of arcades I frequented. So yes there are arcade games that existed but were apparently so rare it seems like only a handful of players ever played them or have any knowledge of there existence.
@@bruhbruhbruh645 I don't remember what company made it or published it. I didn't pay any attention to publishers of games back then. If I had to guess I'd say it was possibly SEGA/Gremlin or Cinematronics. The game was at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor from approximately March through May of 1982 (give or take a week or two) & I probably played it around 30 to 50 times in total while it was there. I've never found any on line info proving it's existence.
@@timmadone8930 So, I tried typing in the names of those companies alongside ZIP/ZAP and I just got results for other games that were made by them, so anything on how the game sounds, looks, or plays?
@@bruhbruhbruh645 Yes, the game looked & played close to "ZEKTOR" although the robots looked different & the robot voices sounded very broken English. The voices in "ZEKTOR" are easy to understand (not so much in the MAME version). I'm fairly sure "ZIP/ZAP" was either an early prototype of "ZEKTOR" or it was the Japanese version of that game. The thing is though there is no record of "ZEKTOR" ever being released in Japan, at least not that I can find.
Well done! That was very interesting to watch indeed. Now could you please do one about this "Killswitch" legend? not the xbox game....the video game that "deleted itself" if you managed to find a copy or ever finish it!
@JDVHS That one is, unfortunately, easy. The Killswitch legend spawned from a short story of the same name by fantasy author Catherynne Valente that was originally published in Invisible Games: an online collection of loosely connected fantasy and horror stories about video games. With Killswitch being the creepiest entry in the collection, it got spread around and people started mistaking it for an actual report of a self-deleting game. Unfortunately, the original Invisible Games blog got overrun by bots years ago, but the original Killswitch story has been reprinted in Melancholy of Mechagirl: a collection of Valente's work.
There's not really anything new here, so clickbait-ey headline. So boooooo!👎 But another decent overview and refresher of the whole Polybius thing. Which I rather enjoyed, truth be told. So yaaaaay!
Great Video, I'm kind of a Polybius Nerd, and I really enjoyed this. Your spot on with your reporting, and Cat is the right person to start with. Doc Vance and I go to the same Arcade Expo each year, and he was nice enough to sign the Read me files off of some of the games he makes (Polybius being one I had to have him Sign). You should check out his Last Star Fighter Software. It plays well, is a lot of fun, and makes you feel like you part of the movie. Doc does have some great arcade software skills. This Past Year Doc brought a Nice Candy Cad he and a friend built, and it housed Hosaka Oni 2000, a fun shooter. He brings a new cab each year, LOTS of FUN... Thank for this Video, Glad the Analytics brought it to me.
My friends and I swear we remember seeing that game in our mall arcade in Sheboygan wi. Place was called Gallaghers. It's probably just a false memory or a miss remembered game, but when we first saw the stories about we all swore we remembered seeing it.
12 дней назад
Great channel, great take and content: well achieved, keep growing.
Blaster as a candidate for Polybius was always rediculous. I played it in a Korean corner store in a suburb of Vancouver, B.C. Canada ffs! It was also a very well known Williams game that was a follow-up to Robotron, not obscure at all. That said, I echo Neon here: this game is a HOOT and you have to give it some time under MAME if you haven't already. It can be very hard at first but OH so fun!
The Polybius myth is especially silly when you think about the all the actual technology like smartphones and social media that has demonstrably harmed millions (billions?) of people's mental health. Even if true, Polybius would be trivial compared with that.
Again, a superb video, but why has this been be re-uploaded? I think this now the second time? or am I in a death loop of watching a great video every time?
Thank you :) I do apologize, and I did make a community post about this - it’s been a very bizarre string of events. I’m sure you noticed a few notable add-ins this time, especially towards the very end of the video. Hopefully there’s no more issues.
Roman numerals are EZ! Have you ever taken the time to make sense of them? It's only a few letters (digits) and rules for their presentation/meaning. IV means four, VII means seven. You always use more adding digits than subtraction digits, so for three you wouldn't do IIV, you'd just do III. For nine you wouldn't do VIII but instead IX because X means ten. Smaller digits to the left means minus, smaller digits to the right means plus. L means 50 and C means 100, so LXXX means 80 while XC means 90. CL means 150. CI means 101, CVI means 106. CXV means 115, CXIV means 114, CLV means 155, CLIV means 154, and CXLIV means 144 because C means 100, XL means 50 minus 10, IV means 5 minus 1. Easy peasy! Conversely, just swapping the order of the XL and IV produces CLXVI which means 166. Simple! :D (EDIT for clarity)
@@aaronroberts8601 I spent about 10 minutes 20 years ago, not a semester at a college. I don't even have a degree. Roman numerals are just not hard, period. If they're hard for you, maybe you should get off RUclips and go start using your brain on stuff? You know what they say: use it or lose it. In this day and age, with automation of everything right around the corner, having a brain is all that's going to be worth anything.
I still hold out hope that the real polybius is the search for what the coinop OP actually meant, and one day we'll have a game theory video that explains what the polybius ARG was all about and how everyone missed the point for years. Ahoy sounded like that was being a set up, but no one seems to be picking up on that
@@JMurdochNZ I know there isn't an arcade game cabinet in a test market that was a CIA mind control experiment, but like perscop the "real game" is the digital scavenger hunt across multiple different articles, videos, and forum posts.
Polybius definitely did not exist. Extensive research on the sources of rumors and other things show this, but I can simplify all that. The effects and capabilities described in most legends of this game, simply aren't possible. Hardware limitations in the 1980s would've made it impossible to generate the psychedelic graphics described (which synopsizes as 'tempest on crack). Along with this, a game simply can't F with your head that way. Sure, some level of mesmerism can be achieved, and moods can be instilled in players, but outside epilepsy, games just can't have profound neurological effects like that. While a fun legend that I am personally fond of, it's really no more realistic than creepypastas where if you die in a game, you die in reality and what have you. Source on technical limitations: I'm a 40-year-experienced software developer who got their start in the era Polybius allegedly existed.
Please look up the Arcade Games CubeQuest and Blaster both came out in the early 80's and tell me the "The effects and capabilities described in most legends of this game, simply aren't possible".
I hrrd, this one time- winners of Polybus, are gonna be the generals and recruiters of the humans that get to pilot the saucers in the upcoming war with future humans on December 3rd!
Polybius was never. It was a tempest arcade game that had a flickering screen 3 died from epileptic heartstop....right next to it was a game called polyplay...east German game in a generic cabinet with geometric shapes and classic al music the. The day the unused polyplay left the arcade the tempest was fixed the same day hence the epilepsy warning and the cia myth we have today
Do you proofread your comments before posting them? Because if you don't, respectfully, I'd like to recommend that you consider starting to do so.. Because this comment is an absolute jumbled nonsensical mess I only understood a small portion of. Just random bits and pieces.
A copy of this game was in a little town restaurant in my home town. I don't care what anyone else says or thinks, because I played it. It did make you a bit motion sick, headaches, and dizzy, but not particularly badly. Just like getting car sick or the feeling you get from watching a strobe light too long. It was very strange. Lots of weird sounds and flashing lights. It did have a vector component though as a transition between levels as a sort of mini-game. It had as best I can describe bubbles or highlighted circles morphing into other shapes like they were moving off in the distance shrinking. You had to use the 2 rollerball controllers to bring the shapes together before they shrank away. It was very different as the controllers had the capabilities to be pushed in like a button. This locked them on to the particular shapes and allowed you to then move them on the screen with the rollers. Once you moved all of the shapes together that fit then a lined hole would show up and you dragged the shapes to this hole within a time limit for scores. It was so different that it stuck out in my memory. It was only there about 3 months and when it was picked up by the vendor that placed it, this was a vendor different than the ones that always handled the video games in this place. Very difficult to play really, but very addictive as well. I was in there playing games all the time as a kid over that summer. It was very strange and no it wasn't in Oregon by the way. Call me crazy, but it was there for a short time and not a myth at all. When it was removed I asked the owner where it went and he said he didn't know what I was talking about and refused to talk about it. Quite strange to be honest.
@@trolojolo6178 i was just responding using the terms they used, i definitely think legend is more appropriate because most if not all legends have some basis in fact
I downloaded a re - creation of the game, made as described by the lore / legend by Senneslochen ( or however you spell it ) , a company in Germany?? Anyway it's a really funny game because of all the 'subliminal' elements. You can toggle a lot of them on / off, and it's a different type of experience. Gameplay isn't stellar but it's entertaining enough.
Haha based on Cat Despira's 'research'. She just makes everything up, that woman hasn't been truthful about anything, ever. You ruined the facts you did present with any mention of her hearsay in desperate want of attention. Too bad really, could have been a great video.
Gemini disagrees with you. Here's what it says, after giving it exactly the same prompt. Analyzing "Akka Arrh" as a Cipher or Pattern Understanding the Polybius Square The Polybius Square is a simple encryption cipher that substitutes digraphs (pairs of letters) for numbers. It's a 5x5 grid filled with the letters of the alphabet, typically omitting 'J' or 'I'. Applying the Polybius Square to "Akka Arrh" To apply the Polybius Square, we'd need to break down the text into pairs of letters. However, "Akka Arrh" doesn't lend itself well to this process, as it contains repeated letters and an odd number of characters. Why "Akka Arrh" Isn't a Polybius Cipher Odd Number of Characters: Polybius Square works best with even numbers of characters, as each pair of letters is replaced by a number. Repeated Letters: Repeated letters within a pair don't provide unique information for decryption. Lack of Contextual Clues: The text surrounding "Akka Arrh" doesn't provide any specific clues or hints about a potential cipher or code. Conclusion Based on the analysis, "Akka Arrh" doesn't appear to be a concrete cipher or pattern when applied to the Polybius Square. It's possible that it might be a random string of characters, a code specific to the game's internal mechanics, or a reference to something else entirely. To further explore the meaning of "Akka Arrh," one might need to delve deeper into the game's code, lore, or cultural references. Additionally, consulting with experts in game history, cryptography, or urban legends could provide additional insights.
If it was the white vectors on a black background and on an XY monitor then it was definitely doable back in 1981. Even a 6502 CPU could track that on a vector monitor since all it has to track are the points. Even color vector games like Tempest and Eliminator were already out by that time.
Okay, 1:30 into this and I don't think I can watch any more. Somebody found the "chromatic aberration" filter and said, "Yes. I want ALL the aberration."
Loving this video so far but can you please not use Ai videos and art in the future? It’s very noticeable and disappointing to see in a video with this level of quality. I’d recommend asking real artists who specialize in 2D and 3D art, and voice actors where you can find them.
I don't know if the game ever existed but Llamasoft owns the rights to Polybius now if you look at there library of game they go back to the 80s like Tempest 2000 that a game that pretty trippy 🤔
yup, it exists. I love Jeff Minter's version of Polybius. I have it on my Playstation 3. Ironically, it's very similar to Blaster, so Jeff Minter definitely did (sort of) do a remake of Blaster. Gameplay of the game was featured in the Video for Nine Inch Nails "Less Than" ruclips.net/video/gDV-dOvqKzQ/видео.html
Llamasoft is just Jeff Minter, a guy that's been making computer and console games both amateurly and professionally since the 80s, most of which have psychedelic visuals and sometimes abstract concepts. There is no conspiracy here, he just liked the Polybius myth and made his own vision of what the game would be.
If you beat polybius. A brown lizard alien shows up at your door and replaces you with a robotic clone so that you can help him fly a spaceship and save the galaxy. Because you're the only one with the reaction time to use the death blossom.
great little film
If I had a quarter for every time THAT happened to me... ;)
@@IdentityCrisis1581 That sounds plausible🤩
'It's all in the reflexes.'
- Jack Burton
Stop spilling the secrets or I’m telling mom about your Playboys!
I'm almost completely certain that the CoinOp entry is what's known as a "copyright trap", albeit one that got picked up by users and turned into part of an urban legend. The Ahoy video mentioned that the guy said it had "very particular wording". A copyright trap is a fake entry in a database that if it shows up in another database proves that your database was stolen because "well, what's it doing there".
@@orvilleredenpiller338 I think it's an ARG that didn't get any traction until after OP was bored with it after no one picked up on it. The Ahoy video sounds like something game theory would cover, but then instead of people playing the game as intended it became some big urban legend.
so the videogame version of a paper town
The thought of Billy Mitchell blowing mud into a bucket is funny to me.
Billy Mitchell blowing mud into a bucket, should be the name of a metal song.
Shit?
Polybius was made up by the author of the Coinop page. There is 0 reference, mention, or source of any kind prior to the Coinop entry. All other sources afterwards lead back to this origin or are bogus 'anonymous' source. It's 100% debunked at this point.
You Polybius deniers are no fun.
Its not debunked. Never was!
You're crazy if you think the CIA didn't do this sort of thing especially at that point in history. Go read some declassified documents then imagine what is still classified today. Search some declassified Soviet documents on mind control and psy research. Of course they did it. Maybe it wasn't called "Polybius" but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Listen to the Mk ultra trials or read the books by the lady who won a lawsuit, Kathy O'brien. Flicker rate, flashing colors and patterns, pushing a button to recieve a dopamine hit, electronic sound waves that hard wired to create positive or negative emotions, testing sites... it's a mind control scientist's dream scenario
I believe polybius is real, but it isn't an arcade game. I think it's an arg that everyone is misinterpreting but I'm not smart enough to figure it out, everything about it just seems like something game theory would cover, but no one has.
What did this change about anything? What did your cypher research produce? What is your new data? What is your response to the data collected? Why is the Coinop post littered with highlighted words? If this was simply a collected retelling, that's fine, but disingenuous bait headlines are weak.
Yeah pretty much clickbait, the article was just a rehash of old Polybius info with some word salad about a game acronym that was already explained elsewhere by the developers of the cancelled akka arrh game. Not watching any more from this channel.
Even as a retelling this video fails, it just makes a bunch of disconnected statements that go no where, and then there is that confusing nonsense towards the end about a "cipher" and chat GPT... This video is idiocy and probably both clickbait and ragebait, also her style reminds me of iilluminaughtii... which is never a good thing. Also all her videos before she starting doing this sensationalized retro gaming stuff look to be paid advertisements for Arcade1up products and chinese hand helds
I mean this person's also using AI imagery in their videos, something's telling me that this person's a sloptuber
Thanks, I kept thinking I missed something, sadly I didn't.
@@RevVoice2 to add that this is one of the dumbest urban legends. Ancient arcade game that can "hurt you"? Wtf. Like we don't have other contemporary games to know the possible tech level, especially now in the age of emulators. The only drama is what RUclipsrs created with their narration. Now if you told me that story back in the 80s I might have been intrigued, but that's because I was in elementary school and all things computer and video game related seemed like magic to me.
Some Key points:
Akka Arrh was an Atari game; Any prototypes that they released would have been installed at Golfland USA in San Jose California. Blaster was by Williams, a Chicago based company. Blaster was fairly successful and had mainstream distribution. Many of Williams prototypes would be installed in area arcades, the most common arcade for their prototype cabinets was Gala Lanes/Galaxy World North (Carol Stream IL.) which was one of my haunts back in the day. A lot of arcade manufacturers would install prototypes there: Bally, Williams, Stern, Midway, Rockola, Chicago Coin... Lots of arcade manufacturers were based out of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
I've always considered Cube Quest as the primary contender, as it was rare, trippy, and the only game manufactured by Simultrek (sounds similar to Sinneslochen) They went bankrupt, so a lot of the cabinets disappeared shortly after installation.
There is a surviving Atari Army Tank Simulator cabinet that was rescued from a military base (they were discarding it, they had moved it to a lounge on base years later, and it had stopped working) it was restored by the person who took possession of it, and the ROMs have been dumped for preservation. The army had approached Atari to make it based on their Battlezone game, and this is where the Star Wars yoke came from: it was based on the Gunner's control the army had requested for the simulator cabinet.
Doc from Rogue Synapse is a great guy; Had many chats with him a while back. He makes the games as a hobby and does everything all on his own, which is pretty impressive.
Great video! Very thorough analysis.
I’ve seen one in real life. I always thought it was a strange name for a game. And that black background with the blue /
Green font sticks out in my memory. It was at a flea market in TN that had tons of old arcade cabinets locked up and not for sale in an area in the back of the building. This was over 20 years ago.
That "one kid" is probably when we discovered epilepsy's connection to gaming.
No light was shed here
I doubt I'm the first to mention this, but the whole story has always been quite similar to a segment from the 1983 horror anthology called Nightmares. It was titled the "Bishop of Battle" and starred Emilio Estevez.
I swear I remember Polybius in the Kennywood amusement park arcade in the 80s. When I later saw the Simpsons gag, I was unaware of the legend but still recognized the name, and remarked the cabinet was wrong. The funny bit was, I never saw the machine operating. It always sat in a corner collecting dust.
'Polybius' as _THAT_ specific game, may not have existed. But the fact is that for Centuries, nay Millennia, the Arts have been known to be the best way to bypass the Rational mind and insert messages (usually Propaganda) directly into the emotions.
Videogames, because of their interactive nature take that ability to manipulate to a new level. Virtual Reality takes it even further still. SO much so that there has been a company out there called 'AppliedVR' that uses specially designed VR software to treat both physical pain and emotional issues. In many cases, they have reported _PERMANENT_ changes through the use of their programs.
Now.
If People think this concept will never be, or has never been, used for flat-out wicked purposes, decades ago, they're just being intentionally ignorant. Control of people is the raison d' etre for many in power.
The fact that the nickname Chili Mitchell almost happened
I always make sure to watch your new videos! I really enjoy them, I love your style, and can tell the hard work you put into this. Keep it up :)
Thank you 🙏🏼
BRAVO! I’ve always thought it a hoax, but have always been fascinated nonetheless. I tried researching it a while back, but you went further and so much better. As far as I’m concerned, you just beat Polybius’s final level. You’ve earned a like and a new subscriber.
The game was in a Vancouver arcade. My cousin and I played it, it had two player mode. It was a game similiar tempest with graphics and vindicators with it's control, except you had the full field to move your ship around in, and it was a joy stick w/two buttons. Shoot, and bomb. We never got passed level 3. I was six he was five, it was 1986.
Finally someone who can prove it with a testimony.
@@trolojolo6178 or he's lying or misremembering. Human memory is notoriously unreliable. This holds no evidentry value whatsoever, especially given the complete abscence of evidence of the game prior to 2000.
I learned of Polybius from GamePro, and I have a plausible belief, along with a concept for how it would work if it were a military experiment, to be used with a sci-fi story i'd want to make around it.
My plausible explanation was that it was an early tempest beta where the board rotated and the player ship stayed at the bottom of the screen. This could result in motion sickness that would make some of the symptoms reported likely.
My fantasy military experiment would be to have a game that was a tempest -like tube with mazelike paths. Using binaural beats (tones and waveforms intended to create emotional and physiological responses in the listener) in combination with strobing colored lights to induce a hypnotic state during the first board. Each sequential board would try to "synchronize" to areas of the brain with the maze route pattern and the binaural beats, and once the game is fairly confident the player is synchronized, would change the maze layout and binaural beat pattern to change the mind from a pattern matching mode to a "rewrite" mode, in hopes to change the target's mental behavior to whatever the programmers wanted.
It's fantastical, but technobabble enough that it makes good fiction.
I do believe there was some type of truth in this myth in different clones, bootlegs and malfunctioning games, and tests that came out in those years.
I remember once years ago seeing an old Pacman clone with a broken flashing Pac and warping ghosts.
In the 90s we had dozens of Street Fighters II bootleg clones that did weird things
For example in Spain there was an arcade game called "The End of Times" that was lost for more than 30 years and was found and restored.
Excellent video, really enjoyed!
Perhaps it was a myth from an amalgamation of unrelated arcade experiences.
The game was real, my theory is it was popular enough on release a few players had epilepsy triggered, and then the arcades just pulled the game. It was a two player co-op game. You were a tank of some sort in a vindicators like level, but the graphics were wire/vector graphics except for powerups, powerups were raster looking missiles/guns/life bonus. Three levels of guns, max two bombs. My cousin and I played it in Vancouver, WA. 1986.
Came for the video game lore, stayed for the soundtrack. cheers
I didn't know Jack Thompson was active against video games in the 80s. I've only associated him with the post Columbine era.
Game studios, if they were large enough, definitely did on-site testing of games. I used to play at arcades owned by Capcom, and they were always testing new Capcom games there. This was a little later than the Polybius era, though.
Found you recently and heard the issues. Sorry to hear, glad I can finally catch this. Subbed, btw. 🤘🏻
I can't speak for "Polybius", but "ZIP/ZAP" was a colored vector game that I played for months in early 1982 at Farrell's. Can't find anything on it but it definitely existed. "Spiders" is a game that at least some people remember, but I only ever played it at a Pizza Hut & that's the only place I ever saw the game despite the 100's of arcades I frequented. So yes there are arcade games that existed but were apparently so rare it seems like only a handful of players ever played them or have any knowledge of there existence.
What company made ZIP/ZAP? Just need this info so I can find this game.
@@bruhbruhbruh645 I don't remember what company made it or published it. I didn't pay any attention to publishers of games back then. If I had to guess I'd say it was possibly SEGA/Gremlin or Cinematronics. The game was at Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor from approximately March through May of 1982 (give or take a week or two) & I probably played it around 30 to 50 times in total while it was there. I've never found any on line info proving it's existence.
@@bruhbruhbruh645 For the record the "ZIP ZAP" game for the ZX Spectrum is definitely not the game I'm referring to.
@@timmadone8930 So, I tried typing in the names of those companies alongside ZIP/ZAP and I just got results for other games that were made by them, so anything on how the game sounds, looks, or plays?
@@bruhbruhbruh645 Yes, the game looked & played close to "ZEKTOR" although the robots looked different & the robot voices sounded very broken English. The voices in "ZEKTOR" are easy to understand (not so much in the MAME version). I'm fairly sure "ZIP/ZAP" was either an early prototype of "ZEKTOR" or it was the Japanese version of that game. The thing is though there is no record of "ZEKTOR" ever being released in Japan, at least not that I can find.
Well done! That was very interesting to watch indeed. Now could you please do one about this "Killswitch" legend? not the xbox game....the video game that "deleted itself" if you managed to find a copy or ever finish it!
@JDVHS That one is, unfortunately, easy. The Killswitch legend spawned from a short story of the same name by fantasy author Catherynne Valente that was originally published in Invisible Games: an online collection of loosely connected fantasy and horror stories about video games. With Killswitch being the creepiest entry in the collection, it got spread around and people started mistaking it for an actual report of a self-deleting game. Unfortunately, the original Invisible Games blog got overrun by bots years ago, but the original Killswitch story has been reprinted in Melancholy of Mechagirl: a collection of Valente's work.
There's not really anything new here, so clickbait-ey headline. So boooooo!👎 But another decent overview and refresher of the whole Polybius thing. Which I rather enjoyed, truth be told. So yaaaaay!
Excellent video. That Williams game near the beginning looks awesome.
3:10 To discredit an emergent industry in the economy, to stifle competition with existing industries, to maintain a stranglehold on money.
Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving! Great video as always! ❤
Great Video, I'm kind of a Polybius Nerd, and I really enjoyed this. Your spot on with your reporting, and Cat is the right person to start with. Doc Vance and I go to the same Arcade Expo each year, and he was nice enough to sign the Read me files off of some of the games he makes (Polybius being one I had to have him Sign). You should check out his Last Star Fighter Software. It plays well, is a lot of fun, and makes you feel like you part of the movie. Doc does have some great arcade software skills. This Past Year Doc brought a Nice Candy Cad he and a friend built, and it housed Hosaka Oni 2000, a fun shooter. He brings a new cab each year, LOTS of FUN... Thank for this Video, Glad the Analytics brought it to me.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing this story, that’s cool that you know the Doc. Tell him I say hi 🫡
@NEONBattleBitch I'd be happy to do so. Keep Making Awesome Content.
My friends and I swear we remember seeing that game in our mall arcade in Sheboygan wi. Place was called Gallaghers. It's probably just a false memory or a miss remembered game, but when we first saw the stories about we all swore we remembered seeing it.
Great channel, great take and content: well achieved, keep growing.
so what changed? the game is still an urban legend
Operation mockingbird is currently STILL in use though.
BTW, fantastic vid. You has the edit skillz! SUBBED
thereis STILL a big anti game stigma, albeit tied to internet addiction now, but after forty plus years is a uphill battle and upsets me
Great vid! Just subscribed
My dad used to take me and my brother to the Malibu Grand Prix arcade once a month.
wait, we aren't just going to skip past that. Billy Mitchel crapped in a bucket in an arcade?
Blaster as a candidate for Polybius was always rediculous. I played it in a Korean corner store in a suburb of Vancouver, B.C. Canada ffs! It was also a very well known Williams game that was a follow-up to Robotron, not obscure at all. That said, I echo Neon here: this game is a HOOT and you have to give it some time under MAME if you haven't already. It can be very hard at first but OH so fun!
It's always dope to sit back and watch someone's craftsmanship. Masterful work you created here. 👑💐
The Polybius myth is especially silly when you think about the all the actual technology like smartphones and social media that has demonstrably harmed millions (billions?) of people's mental health. Even if true, Polybius would be trivial compared with that.
@@tommylakindasorta3068 no
@@John_Fx Care to elaborate?
Blaster is not any more flashy than Defender, Robotron, Star Wars, etc.
this was really neat! i've heard of the game and how it's tied to the men in black. i love these kinds of stories!
polybius is one of the greatest ARG's ever created, the people want to believe 😂
Polybius is no ARG it is in our reality.
no we don't.
There are already 4 people sharing their experience with this arcade in this very same comment section.
Spots bait, hits back, clicks on the three dots next to the video in recommended and selects "don't recommend channel"
Again, a superb video, but why has this been be re-uploaded? I think this now the second time? or am I in a death loop of watching a great video every time?
Thank you :) I do apologize, and I did make a community post about this - it’s been a very bizarre string of events. I’m sure you noticed a few notable add-ins this time, especially towards the very end of the video. Hopefully there’s no more issues.
@NEONBattleBitch it does now. Fab work. Delighted it's been appreciated by everyone. Keep breaking the borders on this work and stay amazing 👾
@@NEONBattleBitchyou think the Illuminati is behind this????
Congrats, you made me watch the video a second time to see if i just missed the point of the video
All I know is I hate it when game and film companies use roman numerals for copyright dates.
Roman numerals are EZ! Have you ever taken the time to make sense of them? It's only a few letters (digits) and rules for their presentation/meaning. IV means four, VII means seven. You always use more adding digits than subtraction digits, so for three you wouldn't do IIV, you'd just do III. For nine you wouldn't do VIII but instead IX because X means ten. Smaller digits to the left means minus, smaller digits to the right means plus. L means 50 and C means 100, so LXXX means 80 while XC means 90. CL means 150. CI means 101, CVI means 106. CXV means 115, CXIV means 114, CLV means 155, CLIV means 154, and CXLIV means 144 because C means 100, XL means 50 minus 10, IV means 5 minus 1. Easy peasy! Conversely, just swapping the order of the XL and IV produces CLXVI which means 166. Simple! :D (EDIT for clarity)
been doing that since beguinning of printed work and carried on to film ect something taught in preschool for most
@@CharlesVanNoland ummm sure it is for you. Especially if you took the time to learn it.
@@aaronroberts8601 I spent about 10 minutes 20 years ago, not a semester at a college. I don't even have a degree. Roman numerals are just not hard, period. If they're hard for you, maybe you should get off RUclips and go start using your brain on stuff? You know what they say: use it or lose it. In this day and age, with automation of everything right around the corner, having a brain is all that's going to be worth anything.
@@CharlesVanNoland for real great guide. If anyone doesn’t understand this could genuinely really help.
Ahoy literally proved this was a hoax.
I still hold out hope that the real polybius is the search for what the coinop OP actually meant, and one day we'll have a game theory video that explains what the polybius ARG was all about and how everyone missed the point for years. Ahoy sounded like that was being a set up, but no one seems to be picking up on that
@@catholiccontriversy
It
was
literally
a
hoax.
Not an ARG, not anything. Just a hoax.
@@JMurdochNZ I know there isn't an arcade game cabinet in a test market that was a CIA mind control experiment, but like perscop the "real game" is the digital scavenger hunt across multiple different articles, videos, and forum posts.
They mentioned Vancouver mall! I grew up in Vancouver and spend money an hour or playing video games at every possible place around the area!
Okay, so this is, like, the third time you've posted this video this week. WTF?
Ahoy already solved this but I'm interested in your take
I might be insane but is this a reupload? I thought I saw a notification for this but never clicked it. Always great content nevertheless!
SE Hawthorne is nowhere near Lloyd district. FFS
That Williams Blaster game is like cocaine for the eyes. So good😂!
I have a short script for a polybius film somewhere, i'd have to dig it up
Lol. Billy Mitchell. He hear he got the world record on Polybius. On original hardware no less.
Polybius definitely did not exist. Extensive research on the sources of rumors and other things show this, but I can simplify all that. The effects and capabilities described in most legends of this game, simply aren't possible. Hardware limitations in the 1980s would've made it impossible to generate the psychedelic graphics described (which synopsizes as 'tempest on crack). Along with this, a game simply can't F with your head that way. Sure, some level of mesmerism can be achieved, and moods can be instilled in players, but outside epilepsy, games just can't have profound neurological effects like that.
While a fun legend that I am personally fond of, it's really no more realistic than creepypastas where if you die in a game, you die in reality and what have you.
Source on technical limitations: I'm a 40-year-experienced software developer who got their start in the era Polybius allegedly existed.
Please look up the Arcade Games CubeQuest and Blaster both came out in the early 80's and tell me the "The effects and capabilities described in most legends of this game, simply aren't possible".
J tube be ruining everything with all these ads.😊
I hrrd, this one time- winners of Polybus, are gonna be the generals and recruiters of the humans that get to pilot the saucers in the upcoming war with future humans on December 3rd!
Polybius was never. It was a tempest arcade game that had a flickering screen 3 died from epileptic heartstop....right next to it was a game called polyplay...east German game in a generic cabinet with geometric shapes and classic al music the. The day the unused polyplay left the arcade the tempest was fixed the same day hence the epilepsy warning and the cia myth we have today
Do you proofread your comments before posting them? Because if you don't, respectfully, I'd like to recommend that you consider starting to do so..
Because this comment is an absolute jumbled nonsensical mess I only understood a small portion of. Just random bits and pieces.
Maybe I should clarify.....all myths start with an element of truth combine POLYplay with TEmpuS...You get POLYBIUS
@@darkness988 What did you expect? Polybius fried his poor brain.
The problem with new info is everyone just makes stuff up so they will get attention.
A copy of this game was in a little town restaurant in my home town. I don't care what anyone else says or thinks, because I played it. It did make you a bit motion sick, headaches, and dizzy, but not particularly badly. Just like getting car sick or the feeling you get from watching a strobe light too long. It was very strange. Lots of weird sounds and flashing lights. It did have a vector component though as a transition between levels as a sort of mini-game. It had as best I can describe bubbles or highlighted circles morphing into other shapes like they were moving off in the distance shrinking. You had to use the 2 rollerball controllers to bring the shapes together before they shrank away. It was very different as the controllers had the capabilities to be pushed in like a button. This locked them on to the particular shapes and allowed you to then move them on the screen with the rollers. Once you moved all of the shapes together that fit then a lined hole would show up and you dragged the shapes to this hole within a time limit for scores. It was so different that it stuck out in my memory. It was only there about 3 months and when it was picked up by the vendor that placed it, this was a vendor different than the ones that always handled the video games in this place. Very difficult to play really, but very addictive as well. I was in there playing games all the time as a kid over that summer. It was very strange and no it wasn't in Oregon by the way. Call me crazy, but it was there for a short time and not a myth at all. When it was removed I asked the owner where it went and he said he didn't know what I was talking about and refused to talk about it. Quite strange to be honest.
so every time i hear of Polybius lately i wonder if anyone seen the comprehensive ahoyvideo
When MK ULTRA was involved in an arcade development?......
somebody need to make a movie based on the Polybius myth
Its not a myth.
@@trolojolo6178 i was just responding using the terms they used, i definitely think legend is more appropriate because most if not all legends have some basis in fact
Good job!
Heureuse de voir Cat recevoir crédit visibilité pour un video à propos de Polybius.
I downloaded a re - creation of the game, made as described by the lore / legend by Senneslochen ( or however you spell it ) , a company in Germany??
Anyway it's a really funny game because of all the 'subliminal' elements.
You can toggle a lot of them on / off, and it's a different type of experience.
Gameplay isn't stellar but it's entertaining enough.
I still watch ahoy
Thats how i found out about polyibus
All I know is I gotta play this game
"puh·li·bee·uhs"
Y'all do realize that The Polybius Conspiracy is fiction, right?
From the day's were video games were going to be the downfall of humanity and tv "rots your brain".
Um yeah. I absolutely played Polybius.
It was a boring game.
I only ever wasted a couple of quarters on it.
I know where there's a polybius cabinet
Where
Haha based on Cat Despira's 'research'. She just makes everything up, that woman hasn't been truthful about anything, ever. You ruined the facts you did present with any mention of her hearsay in desperate want of attention. Too bad really, could have been a great video.
Cope, seethe, dilate repeat!
Good point.
Ahoy! proved this game is a hoax in his video with better journalism and real research
Gemini disagrees with you. Here's what it says, after giving it exactly the same prompt.
Analyzing "Akka Arrh" as a Cipher or Pattern
Understanding the Polybius Square
The Polybius Square is a simple encryption cipher that substitutes digraphs (pairs of letters) for numbers. It's a 5x5 grid filled with the letters of the alphabet, typically omitting 'J' or 'I'.
Applying the Polybius Square to "Akka Arrh"
To apply the Polybius Square, we'd need to break down the text into pairs of letters. However, "Akka Arrh" doesn't lend itself well to this process, as it contains repeated letters and an odd number of characters.
Why "Akka Arrh" Isn't a Polybius Cipher
Odd Number of Characters: Polybius Square works best with even numbers of characters, as each pair of letters is replaced by a number.
Repeated Letters: Repeated letters within a pair don't provide unique information for decryption.
Lack of Contextual Clues: The text surrounding "Akka Arrh" doesn't provide any specific clues or hints about a potential cipher or code.
Conclusion
Based on the analysis, "Akka Arrh" doesn't appear to be a concrete cipher or pattern when applied to the Polybius Square. It's possible that it might be a random string of characters, a code specific to the game's internal mechanics, or a reference to something else entirely.
To further explore the meaning of "Akka Arrh," one might need to delve deeper into the game's code, lore, or cultural references. Additionally, consulting with experts in game history, cryptography, or urban legends could provide additional insights.
ChatGPT might agree with Gemini here. However, you may want a 3rd opinion.
That looks very advanced for 81... Great funding for something unreleased
If it was the white vectors on a black background and on an XY monitor then it was definitely doable back in 1981. Even a 6502 CPU could track that on a vector monitor since all it has to track are the points. Even color vector games like Tempest and Eliminator were already out by that time.
Third upload?
Okay, 1:30 into this and I don't think I can watch any more. Somebody found the "chromatic aberration" filter and said, "Yes. I want ALL the aberration."
Wait, so what’s the co conclusion?
Loving this video so far but can you please not use Ai videos and art in the future? It’s very noticeable and disappointing to see in a video with this level of quality. I’d recommend asking real artists who specialize in 2D and 3D art, and voice actors where you can find them.
Fake game, urban legend.
(Still fun to discuss but ultimately a hoax)
How csn ut be fake when me and 4 others commented here in the comment section playing this very game bavk in the 80s?
@
🧌
Oh I love cia he old fashon movie star! 😊
Quit messing around issuetube
Inter-nasting???
It's a trap
I have an actual rom dump of the game , i could let you play it but i would have to unalive you before the program took affect .
Whoa
This video is terribly made clickbait.
I don't know if the game ever existed but Llamasoft owns the rights to Polybius now if you look at there library of game they go back to the 80s like Tempest 2000 that a game that pretty trippy 🤔
yup, it exists. I love Jeff Minter's version of Polybius. I have it on my Playstation 3. Ironically, it's very similar to Blaster, so Jeff Minter definitely did (sort of) do a remake of Blaster. Gameplay of the game was featured in the Video for Nine Inch Nails "Less Than" ruclips.net/video/gDV-dOvqKzQ/видео.html
Llamasoft is just Jeff Minter, a guy that's been making computer and console games both amateurly and professionally since the 80s, most of which have
psychedelic visuals and sometimes abstract concepts. There is no conspiracy here, he just liked the Polybius myth and made his own vision of what the game would be.
Thx for the clickbait it made it easier to know I should select don’t recommend this channel 🙏 thanks
AH THE 80s STUPID HAIRDOS AND NASTY NEON COLORS MAKE ME ILL!. RIP ARCADE MACHINES! LOL SILLY I3ITCHELL!
Your voice almost sounds like a real woman! Great job NEON
Thats what hypogonadism does to you. Sucks to have non working Hypothalimc pitutary gonodal axis. 🤷♂️
@@trolojolo6178 What.