Polybius (1981) at Coinop.org, THE arcade game resource

archived 24 May 2015 01:49:03 UTC
Wayback Machine
Mar APR AUG
Previous capture 29 Next capture
2002 2003 2004
130 captures
29 Apr 03 - 10 Jan 15
sparklines
Close Help
coinop.org search    Show all results
home · browse games · browse kb · features · coinop.org is arcade video games.

Polybius

Released in 1981
Mame Rom Info: Unknown/Unemulated
ArcadeHardware: -Unique or Unknown-

Rated 2 times.
Average rating: 3 out of 5.

 info about it:
Display:?Unknown?
Orientation:?Unknown?
Resolution:?Unknown? x ?Unknown?
Colors:?Unknown?
Color Info:?Unknown?
genre: Abstract
attributes: Puzzle
controls: [no data]
X-Arcade Controller
X-Arcade Controller
Read our review or Buy it now
$99 - $149
 

Game Summary

We need information.

Game Details

This game had a very limited release, one or two backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland. The history of this game is cloudy, there were all kinds of strange stories about how kids who played it got amnesia afterwards, couldn't remember their name or where they lived, etc.
The bizarre rumors about this game are that it was supposedly developed by some kind of weird military tech offshoot group, used some kind of proprietary behavior modification algorithms developed for the CIA or something, kids who played it woke up at night screaming, having horrible nightmares.
According to an operator who ran an arcade with one of these games, guys in black coats would come to collect "records" from the machines. They're not interested in quarters or anything, they just collected information about how the game was played.
The game was weird looking, kind of abstract, fast action with maybe some puzzle elements, the kids who played it stopped playing other games entirely, one of them died or something. We've contacted one person who presumably was a developer, and he claims the machines disappeard after a month or so and no one ever heard about them again.
Until a rom was shared some weeks ago. Due to a copyright claim we had to delete it. We can't currently emulate the game but we could extract some assets from it.
While we can't share the file, we can describe it, here's what we've found so far:
  • The game is a very innovative one, difficult to describe, it contains a start menu that we shared a screenshot of. The gameplay is basically a central cube that rotates and you have to don't touch the bullets that go from it.
  • Text in the game says "(C) 1981 Sinneslöschen" Maybe a German company?
If anyone has heard any additional information about this game, we'd appreciate hearing about it.

Coinop.org Member Ratings / Comments

by ArcherBelief. Comment: "Hello i am the admin of this page, the game can't currently run on MAME, we would need to modify the source, but we aren't devs. To do that we would need to pass to rom to someone which is ilegal." (2003-03-10 16:20:45Z)
by Lady_Eboshi. Comment: "The name "Sinneschlossen" is German for "senses-deleting" or "senseless" and I think Polybius was the name of a many-eyed monster in Greek mythology. Has anyone considered emulating it for MAME?" (2003-03-02 21:40:45Z)
 

Images

(fuzzy search)
Title screen shot from Polybius.

Search the following for Polybius
A Minimalist 3030 web site. Copyright ©1994-2002 Minimalist. All rights reserved.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%