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| Re: What we know about Polybius by Ice Cream Jonsey 10/13/2006, 3:56pm PDT | ||||
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| Polybius
Article by Scott Sharkey For the last few years a story has spread of an old videogame with some peculiar properties. Nobody seems to know where this game came from or how many were made, but it's rumored that kids who played it often experienced amnesia, forgetting their own names or where they lived. Sometimes, they would wake up in the night screaming, having experienced horrible nightmares. Most terrifyingly of all, it's said that some who played the game have never wanted to play video games ever again, sometimes becoming staunch anti-gaming crusaders. Though its origins are shrouded in mystery, it's speculated that the game was developed by the CIA as a testing platform for new behavior modification techniques. Up until now I'd never heard of video games doing anything more sinister than causing seizures or trying to kill Emilio Estevez, so I was more than a little disappointed to discover that Polybius never existed. The world of video gaming is surprisingly short of pure bullshit urban legends. Rumors that you could resurrect Aeris or that Daikatana wouldn't suck were about as close as we got. The story about hundreds of thousands of Atari E.T. cartridges buried in a shallow mass grave somewhere in New Mexico would have been perfect, except for the fact that it's 100% true. It was once rumored that Eric Harris made Doom II levels simulating his high school to train himself before ventilating his class at Columbine, and while he did make some Doom II WADs, they were only remarkable for their complete mediocrity (with the possible exception of one room.) I think I've only ever heard of one story whose origins were entirely rooted in imagination and paranoia, and it was probably the story that ultimately evolved into Polybius. In the halcyon days of the early 80s, when the arcades still teemed with headbands and tube socks, I sometimes heard it whispered that the Tempest machine would receive occasional visits from mysterious men in black coats who would collect the high score list for some unknown, but certainly sinister, purpose. My parents didn't blink when I told them about it. I suppose it just helped to confirm their long held suspicion that video games were created by the government as part of a plot to train an entire generation of children into super-soldiers. Because locking, loading, and firing an M-16 is almost exactly the same as pressing the CTRL key. Yeah, I thought it was funny, too. Wait until WWIII hits and you get drafted into the cockpit of a stealth fighter and discover that it controls just like Star Fox. We'll see who's laughing then. Though Polybius never actually existed, it could still be made. Not as the mind altering tool of a shadowy government agency, but as an incredible prank. Anyone could do it if they had access to an arcade or pizza parlor and an old cocktail arcade cabinet outfitted with a junker PC. A good programmer could bang out a clone of Qix or some other classic action/puzzle game in an afternoon and from there you could add a wide range of disturbing behaviors to the machine. It only takes a little imagination to come up with some good ones, but bear in mind that the goal isn't merely to startle the player. A squirt gun installed in the cabinet would be enough to accomplish that. The challenge would lie in making the machine do odd things that are subtle and inconsistent enough to worry the player and start rumors, but not overt enough to provoke the realization that the machine is just fucking with them. The game would only have to knock on the fourth wall a little not bust through it like Kool Aid Man. At most the machine should randomly perform one trick a day, if not less. It'd be all the more worrying for the player if nobody else had shared their particular experience. Interrupting the game with a screaming horror like the one on the top of this page (which probably just cost me a few friends) may be a little over the top, but it'd only have to happen once to start the rumor mill going. It'd be even better if someone complained to the arcade attendant about it. "Yeah, sure. My video games are trying to kill you. Do you want your quarter back or something?" Outfitting the machine with a battery would enable it to turn itself back on after it's unplugged. Not a bad idea of you don't mind having to occasionally replace your closing shift. The original Q-Bert machine featured a knocker inside the cabinet. Whenever the little weirdo fell off you would hear a descending whistling noise, followed by the knocker striking a piece of foam at the bottom of the machine when he "hit." A similar device could be used in a Polybius machine. Then again, people might just think there are rats fucking inside. You could rig the game to occasionally whisper disturbing things just on the edge of audibility. If a scared female voice whispering "Go away." or "Stop it, you're hurting me." doesn't rattle the player, the always terrifying "I'm pregnant." should do the trick. Failing that, you could always try a 5800Hz whistle. If you can't unnerve the players then you can at least piss off their pets. In the spirit of the original story you might want to hire a few of your more suspicious looking friends to put on black suits and come to "inspect" the machine. Make up a custom diagnostic screen with some unusual statistics and have them accidentally leave the screen up after they're finished. Here's hoping that someone in internet land has the resources and sense of humor to give this a shot. Maybe someday we'll see a movie. Before you die, you play Polybius. -=-=-=-=-= ... Well. That sucks. On the other hand, someone needs to go ahead and make that game. (And Jerry's Bob Ross (C) Game Super Qix idea, but that's this whole other thing.) And then release it under the Caltrops Magic Video Game Productions Company. ICJ |
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What we know about Polybius by 07/17/2006, 1:17am PDT  Re: What we know about Polybius by 07/17/2006, 1:44am PDT Re: What we know about Polybius by 07/17/2006, 10:45pm PDT Re: What we know about Polybius by 10/13/2006, 3:56pm PDT |
