The Mystery of Polybius Is So Much Better Than We Thought

🡇 --------------- chapters & accreditation --------------- 🡇
0:00 intro
1:09 the story of polybius
2:08 the context of arcades
3:57 gaming hoaxes
4:27 legends evolve over time
5:48 kids experiencing adverse effects
7:05 origin of the name Polybius
7:45 most prominent investigations into Polybius
8:23 the earliest mentions of the urban legend
8:57 descriptions of the gameplay
9:30 the nucleus of the legend
10:33 variety of clues
11:26 rogue synapse and the playable polybius
12:48 kids collapsing in the newspaper
13:23 men in black explained
14:59 recap
15:38 tip-offs and possible motives
16:41 gameplay
19:57 closing thoughts on Polybius
20:55 squarespace ad
21:48 cta
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Additional Information
The story of Polybius from Skeptoid
The Video Game That Doesn't Exist from Ahoy
Polybius on Wikipedia
Polybius Square on Wikipedia
High Res Splatterhouse TG16 Cover
April 1992 EGM article about Shen Long
Herobrine on KnowYourMeme
Cache of the first known instance of Polybius on the internet
Rez HD gameplay by makuchan
Tempest gameplay by Ed C.
Qix gameplay by Old Classic Retro Gaming
Qix poster with pronunciation guide, uploaded by Jeff Gerstmann
Killer in the Arcade: The Legend Of Polybius
Alien Crush gampley by LongplayArchive
Cache of GamePro's website verifying the text of the above
Rogue Synapse's website
Wonderful Universe of TANG: Nightmares (footage of The Bishop of Battle)
Brian Mauro who played games too long
The original photo of a Polybius cabinet
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Music used in this video:
"Smooth wit' any groove" by flofilz / psalm trees
"taipei rosebuds" by mommy / snowglobe
"bringmesun" by Psalm Trees / Guillaume Muschalle
"Shreddem" by baaskat
"Feel the Boogie" by Bassti
"Soulful" by L'indécis

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[ModernRogue]

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[neiloppa]

When I was a kid, on a roadtrip my family stopped at a gas station. There I saw an arcade cabinet of a fighting game that someone was playing. We had to leave really quickly. Over the years I described characters and the game to many people and they thought I was crazy. For about 15 years I thought it's possible I imagined the whole thing. Then one day on the internet the game somehow found me. It turns out that only 3 arcade cabinets were ever made! The game is called Tattoo Assassins. This is my video game story.

[floogon_gameing]

"The men in black were real"

this video just keeps getting better and better!

[saucerr]

Ahoy did a fantastic hour long documentary tracking down the origin of the Polybius myth and he does some serious detective work in it. Highly recommend it.

[HamRadioCrashCourse]

Did not expect this episode! Very awesome to see you two cover this! Kudos!

[Sheithan]

I already watched Ahoy's documentary. It's amazing. Every single one of their videos is a masterpiece, can't recommend the channel enough.

[Drayle]

I loved this. I loved this so much. Seeing Brian's CONSTANT reactions was pure gold and I love the Polybius myth.

You guys rock

[djGLCKR]

Reminder: Ashens and the Polybius Heist, Nov. 19.

[olthdorimirth]

Love those citation.

Especially how Ahoy was mentioned. The stuff they make is top quality.

[WLxMusic]

Ahoy made an amazing documentary on the mystery of Polybius. Everyone who is interested should definitely watch it. Super high production value.

[custodeon]

"Who would gamble on a video game"
Oh, Brian, it's almost like you don't know anything about the last 5 years.

[variant]

I really enjoy these "mystery" videos, like the bloody mary one and this. Keep up the good work.

[dannydiehl]

I didn't expect MR to cover this! Glad to see you guys are branching out. I've been watching a while, but you've finally got my sub!!

[tzisorey]

Jason says "One more thing" so many times in this episode, I'm wondering if he's channeling Uncle from Jackie Chan Adventures.

[justal]

This almost sounds like it came out of the SCP Foundation.

[thefrankperspective]

Also, casually throwing “quantum mechanics” into the conversation is a win.

[TVsttic]

these guys are like modern mythbusters. there’s a guy with glasses and a guy with a hat.

[adenlirusso]

It’s funny cause I read the book “Armada” by the guy that wrote “Ready Player One” and it talked about literally everything they said like the men in black and the gambling, but in the book he used polybius as a way to say that the government was testing kids for combat like alien invasion type combat. It’s a great book in my opinion so read it if you can

[TheRealAlpha]

I imagine it was just people getting motion sickness from a monitor with too low a refresh rate. I remember being like 10 and making up a story to my brother about seeing a TV show that talked about how games were programmed, and that they revealed there'd be Atari games made for the Colecovision (at the time the two companies were about as much rivals as Sega and Nintendo were at one point.) Cut to a year or two later, suddenly "Atarisoft" became a thing, making classic Atari games for other platforms and my quiet surprised at suddenly being proved right. "See, I told you!"

[Jfunkey]

I absolutely ADORE the story Polybius! Thank you guys for making one of the best talking/podcast segments on the history of this boogieman of a game! If anyone wants an even deeper story on all of this watch Ahoy's documentary on Polybius!