Polybius (Urban Legend) | Hacker News Reader

Polybius (Urban Legend)

en.wikipedia.org

48 pointsbenbreen14 comments

The great polybius documentary by Ahoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7X6Yeydgyg

Ahoy's videos are absolutely amazing. So much work goes into them and each one is a full documentary on a particular gaming topic.

Can't recommend that channel enough.

The radiotopia podcast about it was kinda wild ride too, although it's not completely truthy.

https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/the-polybius-conspiracy

The Angry Video Game Nerd's video on Polybius has gotta be one of my favourites.

https://youtu.be/x4hktqhBpzY

Loved that one as well :-) It brought my my first notion of Polybius.

This was the theme of one of Nine Inch Nails recent music videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDV-dOvqKzQ

Well, not really, that's an actual game that uses the "Polybius" name: https://store.steampowered.com/app/906120/POLYBIUS/

It's a pretty great game though, it feels like what someone that had only ever played 80s arcade games would think VR games would be like. There's a good video here of Jeff Minter (the developer) talking through the first part of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VXsAiNdelk

I am pretty sure Minter’s game functions as a hypnotic induction device. Luckily he has chosen to load it with a text generator that commands its user to EMBRACE ENLIGHTENMENT or ESCHEW SLIGHTLY WARM TEA rather than do anything horrible.

That is, unless I have only seen the decoy “subliminals” and missed the actual subliminals buried far too deep in the visual noise to make out consciously...

Odd that the Wikipedia article doesn't mention what is almost assuredly the actual basis of the legend -- the real East German arcade game "Poly Play" (so named because it had several games in it). After all, besides the similarity of the name, there is the fact that the Polybius game was supposedly created by a fictitious German company "Sinneslöschen". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poly_Play

The only connection is the shared lexeme "poly" which is a common lexeme in English, and having a single detail connected to Germany? That's thin for "actual basis" of the legend.

The YouTube Ashens had a successful fundraising last year for a heist movie based around the Polybius legend. Filming just begun last week.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ashens-and-the-polybius-h...

Wow, this is right in my age bracket and I never heard this one at all.

Surprised it hasn't made the rounds again revamped as "Don't go to this website!" or "OMG my friend's brother downloaded this app. and..."

Ah, I remember reading about this in EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly). Scared the shit out of me as a kid.

The Polybius episode of Dimension 404 was pretty fun.

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