The article declared the existence of the game to be "inconclusive", helping to both spark curiosity and spread the story.įollowing the appearance in GamePro magazine, a number of people claimed to have some involvement with Polybius. This is the first known printed mention of the game, exposing the legend to a mass-market audience. Polybius then appeared in the September 2003 issue of GamePro, as part of a feature story on video games called "Secrets and Lies". Some time prior to September 2003, Kurt Koller, owner of, submitted a message to the American video game magazine GamePro about Polybius. The remainder of the information about the game is listed as "unknown", and its "About the game" section describes the "bizarre rumors" that make up the legend. The author of the entry claims in the description to be in possession of a ROM image of the game, and to have extracted fragments of text from it, including "1981 Sinneslöschen". The entry mentions the name Polybius and a copyright date of 1981, although no such copyright has ever been registered. The earliest confirmed record of the legend is an entry for the title added to arcade game resource on Februalthough lists the page as originating in 1998, journalist Stuart Brown states that it appears to have defaulted to that time due to a database error caused by a lack of input.
#POLYBIUS ROM SNES OFFLINE#
Some anecdotal accounts claim that the legend originated on Usenet circa 1994, or earlier through offline word of mouth, though no recorded evidence exists for either claim. Origins ĭue to the viral and anecdotal nature of the legend, an exact origin is unclear. Historians and journalists studying the urban legend note further that the name of the purported arcade game itself, "Polybius", is also the name of a classical Greek historian born in Arcadia and known for his assertion that historians should never report what they cannot verify through interviews with eyewitnesses. The word's meanings are derived from the German words Sinne, "senses" and löschen, "to extinguish" or "to delete", though the way they are combined is not standard German. The word is described by writer Brian Dunning as "not-quite-idiomatic German" (a word constructed outside the norms of German-language usage and grammar) meaning "sense delete" or "sensory deprivation" if it were a German term of actual use, "Sinneslöschen" would be pronounced like. The company named in most accounts of the game is Sinneslöschen. Approximately one month after its supposed release in 1981, Polybius is said to have disappeared without a trace.
#POLYBIUS ROM SNES SERIES#
Players supposedly suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including seizures, amnesia, insomnia, night terrors and hallucinations. The legend describes how the machines were visited by men in black, who collected unknown data from the machines, allegedly testing responses to the game's psychoactive effects. The game is described as proving popular to the point of addiction, with lines forming around the machines often resulting in fights over who would play next. The story tells of an unheard-of new arcade game appearing in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon, in 1981 this would have been something of a rarity at the time. A mocked-up Polybius cabinet made by Rogue Synapse
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