I have so many memories with this game but I had to quit because of the notorious headaches. There were plenty of flashing lights in arcade games in those days but the way they flashed in Polybius was part of the challenge. I guess having to focus on the lights to play the game caused the headaches but I don’t know. It was always the busiest cabinet at my arcade so at least I saved myself a lot of time. It wasn’t around for long but I can’t really remember much about my life other than this game from back then so I couldn’t say even how old I was when it was out. The friends I would take turns with back then don’t even know what I’m talking about when I bring this game up. It was a long time ago I guess.
One of the arcades in the town I grew up in had one of these, for a short time. I never played it (I was young enough to not be interested) but saw some of the older kids playing it. Pretty soon afterwards my dad forbid (forbade?) me from that arcade, because he heard that’s where they sold “drugs”. I never made the connection until just now. Pissed me off, because that arcade had Robotron.
I played it occasionally but, as you said, it wasn’t very interesting game for young children. I guess it was interesting only subconsciously (the vivid dreams I mentioned in the other comment). Maybe it would have been fun game if I were an adult at the time.
What a funky new font you got there, pretty hard to read the title. It's like the letters are shuffling around like SIBYL or PLOY or US BIO something.
Anyway, that game doesn't exist. I would know, I played all the arcade games they had in the area when I was a kid. It was pretty fun and harmless until they took it away. Never seen one. The game didn't even start yet.
We didn’t really have arcade in our town but there were some coin-operated games around. I think it wasn’t very long period of time they had Polybius but I remember playing it occasionally during that time. I was quite young so I didn’t fully understand the gameplay and can’t really recall any elements of it anymore. Only thing I do remember is I used to have vivid dreams about it when I hadn’t played it for a while. That sort of made me interested to play it again every once in a while. Though I must have been terrible at that game so I don’t know why I even tried it that many times.
I didn’t really thought about it when they had changed the machine to different one. I would rather play the Street Fighter II or whatever they had put there instead because it was much easier game to understand. There have been occasional dreams I’ve had much later in my life about this game but other than that I don’t really think about it. Sometimes after having that kind of vivid dream I do think for a while that it would be nice to give it a try again but I don’t know if they have the game anywhere or if it’s possible to emulate via MAME.
I remember playing this every day at the arcade. We were talking earlier about Tetris, but this was immersion on another level. I saw my life in those graphics and understood the universe. Sadly, after one month the machine must’ve broken down, because it was shipped away for repairs, never to return again…
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend. The legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
It’s a fun tale though, and there are some good articles and video essays on it.
I really liked Tetris DS. The retro NES graphics and remixed music was a fantastic love letter to those old games, and the songs were pretty damn good to boot. It was also the version of Tetris I was best at, for some reason I was a lot better with the old, flat, firm DS Phat buttons more than any other console. I forgot what level I got to in Endless but it was probably over 500. Multiplayer was also a hoot, with powerups and you could play with 9 other people that didn’t even need the game to play. (Remember those days when you didn’t have to all have a copy of the game to play together? What a concept!)
This, 100%. While GB Tetris and NES Tetris were some of the first games I remember playing, Tetris DS was one of the first Tetris games I loved. And you’ve absolutely got a point that the original DS does best; the mushy D-pad on the DS Lite just plays it so much worse in my experience. (I feel good about it on my New 2DS XL though other than the either very soft image or very small image I get from it though)
Its basically a perfect game. It never feels dated and has one of the most horribly catchy songs ever created by man. Its weird that it’s so fun, its like as simple as you can really boil down a game, its literally just arranging blocks into lines. But it just clicks with the human brain on some deep level.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around T spins. High level tetris play is absurd to me. I have no idea how people can make sense of it. Watching it makes sense, but playing it is entirely a whole other ballpark.
I think my favorite versions of tetris are a homebrew version made for the gba called apotris and the newest tetris effect because it has pretty colors lol. Oh actually I also like tetris 99. The concept is really neat. I also like the themes available in that one. You can probably see a trend here. I like the pretty colors lol
I’m glad they keep iterating on it though. I think there’s a lot of “classic” games that don’t really need to be…revamped or changed. They’re good the way they are, but people just want more of what made the existing games good. So many timed companies try to reinvent the wheel when it didn’t really need to be remade (the halo series comes to mind. RIP)
At the risk of going slightly off topic, one puzzle type game similar to tetris that I got completely absorbed into is lumines. Have any of you played that title? I’m curious how tetris experts would compare the two. In my eyes lumines seemed a lot more simple in design compared to tetris. But I have no idea. I sunk 60 hours so far into lumines which is probably rookie numbers, but I’ve never gotten so into a puzzle game like this before.
I played Tetris for the first time on my friend’s Gameboy back in the 90’s. I didn’t get addicted at the time and I’m still not, but I do play Tetris 99 on my switch occasionally.
Overall, it’s an amazing game. It can be learned in minutes but takes years to master.
I love Telltale’s stuff, but they’re a bit hit or miss for me. I really liked The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands, but really didn’t care for The Walking Dead sequels and Batman. A lot of companies tried to replicate what they had but they never had writing as good.
That said, Telltale really needed some alternate endings. There’s only so much “X will remember this” I can read before I realize how little my actions matter.
I have Tales from the Borderlands and Poker Night in my library, but I just can’t bring myself to play them. Knowing they’re just basically limping along really makes me not want to get invested in characters I know probably won’t get the resolution they deserve.
Tales from the Borderlands is a finished story, and it’s amazing! Please at least try the first episode, it has some of my fondest and over the top gaming memories!
I totally agree with you. They had something special with the wolf among us. I was very excited when they announced the sequel, but sad to hear your news about firing the team.
Tales from the Borderland would be on second spot for me. Following the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Batman. But for the for the last three, I really don’t remember much anymore.
They went bankrupt but got picked up by another company years later. They got a big chunk of the original team back on board, then they made The Expanse game, then they fired most of the team again.
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