POLYBIUS - The Video Game That Doesn't Exist
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 พ.ค. 2024
- Next up: RetroAhoy - The Secret of Monkey Island
Patreon: / ahoy
NB: This video contains flashing images, particularly at 11:34, 15:22, and 59:02
Original soundtrack: xahoy.bandcamp.com/album/poly...
0:00 Introduction
2:37 Evidence & Analysis
5:11 Visual Evidence
8:21 Gameplay Footage
16:33 Physical Evidence
20:30 Anecdotal Evidence
28:50 Tracing the Source
37:06 Pre-2000 Evidence
43:14 Cyberyogi
44:59 Coinop.org
48:23 Kurt Koller
52:13 Parallels and Possible Influences
1:06:46 Conclusion - เกม
Here's how to solve the mystery: Create a company called Seneslochen, release a game called Polybius, and see who sues you.
good idea
The Garden of Eatin fucking genius. Because then it'll be copyright infringement if it's real..
Trademark infringement, actually.
The Garden of Eatin same possible charges either way *shrug*
You will get sued for the company name
Edit: u need to get sued for copyright on the game, not the company name. Thats what I ment
POLYBIUS:
*doesn’t exist*
Petscop:
_Are you challenging me?_
Lol
Actually a good twist on this format, nice
You watch pyrocynical.
i was sitting on the toilet when I read this and almost died whilst doing so
Both start with P
So you can say the
Creepy story of the two PP games
Not only was Polybius born in Arcadia and his name literally means "many lives" one of his most famous quotes is " historians should never report what they cannot verify through eyewitnesses". Whoever came up with all the details for this story is a straight-up thematic genius. Hope they found their true calling as a writer or director.
As an amateur writer myself, this is the sort of thing I love about urban legends like these. The amount of little references and details is so cool! Imo, I would say Polybius existed at some point, but it most likely was an experimental prototype. Some kids probably experienced headaches after playing it for a while, and the men in black were probably just maintenance men taking it away because it was faulty. But I still like the MIB conspiracy angle, too!!
@@Phoebe5448Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the Polybius myth was at least somewhat based on a weird game Kurt played as a kid that got removed soon after it arrived.
@@Phoebe5448 The game was called Cube Quest. It was well known for breaking down, came out only two years later, and the early 3D graphics caused many to experience motion sickness and get headaches from the sharp contrast of bright, neon colours that accompanied screen flashing occasionally during gameplay.
Cube Quest cabinets were notorious for disappearing or being carted off, because the laserdisc tech was incredibly finicky and difficult to repair, even among arcade enthusiasts who sometimes undersell the unreliable nature of arcade cabinets as a whole. Being *literally* the first real-time 3D game ever made, and constantly requiring maintenance make it a perfect nexus, with the name being a call out.
What is that call out? "If you had done your research and talked to actual arcade people at the time, not only would you have known this was bullshit, you wouldn't have been tricked into looking for/writing about this game that does not, and can not, exist in the manner it was described." Its a call out to journalists and historians who do not properly research things.
It's pretty on the nose
@@KitaBFawkes this i the first time I’ve heard of someone even mentioning this game in general sounds like it and polyplay influenced this legend the most.
I saw a Tumblr post not too long ago that talked about why this urban legend caught so much traction. To paraphrase, every individual element of Polybius is true to some extent:
1) The symptoms described (headaches, nausea, nightmares, mild memory loss and trauma) fit what someone going through an epileptic seizure might experience. Back in the early 80's, epilepsy awareness was near to non-existent, and for a lot of epileptic people, their first seizures were probably triggered by arcade games.
2) Men in black frequenting arcades were a common sight in some places. This isn't due to them gathering info from a creepy game, but rather, because they suspected an arcade was a front for an illegal gambling ring. It wasn't an unfounded fear, as many early arcades did indeed turn out to be just that.
3) A poor neighborhood like that described as the origin of Polybius would absolutely set up bootleg arcade machines. These would be frankensteined from various cabinets, and the games would suffer from visual glitches due to the poor construction.
the first two points are mentioned in the video already
Except those aren't symptoms of an epileptic seizure. Those are extremely common ailments with a ton of potential causes.
Epileptic seizures are characterized by temporary confusion, muscle stiffness, uncontrollable jerking of the limbs, loss of consciousness/awareness, staring spells & sudden sense of fear, anxiety or deja vu.
There is also the fact that some companies did do some sort of beta testing with certain games. I think frogger did something like that. I wouldn't be surprised if Polybius was created, started causing seizures, and was scrapped.
this post is glowing
I do remember all of that now. You are absolutely right..
This isn't a TH-cam video, it's a goddamn documentary.
It's both sir.
We live in a beautiful period of time in which true creators have a free to use platform that all can see, and allows them to gain an audience and make money.
This truly is a documentary, that has a lot of work into it, that just so happens to be on TH-cam.
Gotta love modern technology. This shit would be science fiction 30 years ago. Now we have kt.
youtube videos back then used to be much better than most crap trending on youtube today a damn shame its harder to find good content on youtube now we should all thank Ahoy for not selling out at this point like what a lot of youtubers did when youtube's algorithm changed
@@doom5895 watch gamegrumps, there's some good quality for ya. i recommend the sonic adventure playthrough. you wont be sorry
Quite a few youtube videos are documentaries.
Being on youtube doesn`t mean it`s not a documentary lol
"History isn't necessarily what happened... it's what people say happened"
* conspiracists start typing furiously *
@@eliegbert8121 People have conspired all throughout history, I see nothing wrong with people being skeptical about it, it's not like someone who conspired to murder a world leader is going to write their plot down in a history book.
exactly, history is written by the victors, something everybody seems to forget.
@@fluttershystayshigh4202 "History is written by the victor... History is filled with liars!"
This is very true, going along with the saying "the winners write the history books"
The funny thing about Polybius is that while its existence is false, the various rumors associated with it (government spying, seizures, etc) do have some grounding in reality: prototype game cabinets would frequently come and go from arcades for market testing, government agents did hang around arcades sometimes (though it was actually because some arcades were suspected fronts for organized crime), and kids did experience seizures, headaches, and other health problems from arcade games. But there was no sinister MK-ULTRA type experiment behind them: it’s just something that happens when you get a bunch of kids together in a big dark room full of flashing lights and loud noises while feeding them loads of pizza, candy, and caffeine. That kind of sensory overload wasn’t exactly common before arcades were a thing.
Yes that's exactly what he said in the video
Ok glowie
ur so glowing rn
The idea of a mysterious unidentified cabinet suddenly appearing in an arcade then disappearing just as suddenly also has a basis in fact. Many games were first distributed as test cabinets with generic titles and art before the design was finalized (often to gather usage/marketing data that would have to be collected from the machine by a technician); there were also a lot of bootleg cabinets floating around with generic exteriors and terrible quality control. Cabinets got recalled or sent back to the manufacturer all the time, often without (public) explanation.
@@yetanother9127 this was also mentioned in the video
It's funny, I've watched this probably 4 times now, over 5 years, fully knowing the conclusion of the video. Still, it is so well made and so perfectly narrated, I keep coming back.
You might wanna check out Dimension 404 then. It's an anthology show, similar to Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. They got one episode titled Polybius with just that plot
I know exactly what you mean 🙌
@@MarcRitzMDI’ll check that out .. and what’s best black mirror episode? Shut up and dance absolutely ruined my mind for weeks after watching it 😂. Honourable mentions to White bear , san junipero , alligator, metalhead,
the soundtrack used is also top quality, great video
me too! :) i agree
"There's also a user named polybius who was quite active in alt.mag.playboy between 1997 and 1998."
Local man incidentally kinkshsmed by digital archaeologist from twenty years into the future
this man is the real hero of the story
R/ihadastroke
@@IamTheSasquatch r/foundthemobileuser
💀💀💀
He didn’t shame him, just mentioned it 😂
"This game makes people vomit, get sick, and it hurts their eyes a lot."
3DS on 3D mode: *allow my to introduce myself*
1 FPS with bad loading: *mlg plays in background* oooooooooooo yeah
@@jenanning8867 ??? no i think it plays at like 30-60 fps and the only thing that makes it take long to load is it starting up
Do you get that from computers?
Had this from.Obey the Walrus. Even turned way down, the pre feedback frequency (you have to have extremely good hearing to notice it) have me a headache in my eyes.
Actually the 3DS games with 3D turned off made me seasick cause I could not tell depth perception whatsoever
Which 3ds? They "fixed" it by adding eye tracking cameras and Kid Icarus was all of a sudden rad. I wish the circle pad pro and the new 3ds were an experience I could have in that gaaaaaaame
I grew up in the 70's and 80's and the arcade explosion at the start of the 80's was unreal. Your average arcade had dim or even black lighting, all the games had their volume set to maximum and most arcades had jukeboxes as well, blaring heavy metal and rock at almost concert decibels. It was an assault on the senses that's hard to describe unless you were there. New games were coming out almost daily sometimes, and you never knew what would show up next. Every movie theater had an arcade too, and half the fun of going to the movies was hitting up the arcade while you waited for the movie to start. It was a crazy time. The idea that a game could pop up somewhere as an experiment in mind control is entirely plausible. New machines were so common and they generated such a huge buzz when the showed up you could have to wait hours to play a popular game, lining your quarters/tokens up on the machine to save your place in line. Every new game had some new gimmick or twist to set it apart, and the fight over floor space in an arcade was brutal, with distributors bribing and threatening arcade owners to get their machines installed. There was intense competition behind the scenes and at video game conventions- originally not for the fans, but for the distributors and developers, with a sales driven convention floor that wouldn't have been out of place at a 60's car dealership convention. I had a good friend who worked at an arcade and would tell stories of distributors shoving competitor's machine out of the way to install theirs or even outright stealing machines to get floor space for their own. Most arcades did not own the machines they had- they leased them. When a machine was old or unpopular, they'd have the distributor come pick it up, but other companies would offer to remove the machines for them. You can guess that a lot of these machines did NOT end up where they were supposed to go. There was a really Wild West lawlessness about early arcades that made them that much more fun to go to.
Holy shit, that's really wild and interesting to hear about! It sucks that when I was born (early 2000's) arcades were becoming increasingly scarce, aside from the Chuck E. Cheese's or the Cici's Pizza in the neighboring town.
Shame that arcades nowadays are just kiddie casinos.
I know what you are talking about somewhat. I was a kid in the early 90's when NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat & Street Fighter 2 came out. Those games, among others we're HUGE!! Even in a small town in Utah where I grew up. I can't imagine what it was like in big cities.
As a Czech citizen, the story of the alleged Welsh developer who moved to Czechoslovakia because of his parents' business affairs really cracked me up. As a communist country, there were no private businesses, they were all owned by the government. There was little to no trade with the west. Getting hired by a South American company to make a game for the US market is a darn wild fantasy. Also, the eastern bloc (or most of it) was pretty much behind in computer technologies - I suspect scientists backed by the government would be lucky to work with such computers here around 1980. People fabricating these grand stories set in foreign countries should really do some research of those countries beforehand :D
When it comes to these kinds of hoaxes, simpler is better. "Obscure CIA MKULTRA experiment" is an easier sell than "schizophrenic Czechoslovakian-Welsh-South American joint venture to release less than a dozen arcade cabinets for a random arcade in Portland that also is a brainwashing device." I also thought the "haunted game cabinet" angle that some of the creepypastas took was very silly, as well. At least the CIA theory has some minor basis in reality, as there are plenty of times when the United States government conducted some kind of secret experiments to the detriment of its own population, such as the Downwinders.
Its like the redditor who fueled a subreddit into believing his dad bought a cuban island where they could all go... the problem is that you cant buy land in communist cuba. Lmao.
Same here in Croatia a former state member of Comunist Jugoslavia,but after 1990-1995 durung a War for independance there was a Arcade game centers,one is owned by BIM-BAM enterprize from Vinkovci that still exist and they have a huge Funn Park Biggest in Croatia,the ovner is Ivica Jukic i might ask hem did he ever heard about Polibius,becose i played Final Fight with Hagar and other arcade games back in 1992 durin war in citty Vinkovci and POLIBIUS is familiar to me i remember some squares,and geometric shapes,but that game was no so much popular aroun players so we play mostly Final fight,space shooters and so....
P.s. sorry for misspeling,afterall we are boath in Country-s that was in Comunist-Socialist dark ages and about the same time we exit you from U.S.S.R. in 1990 and Croatia from Jugoslavia short after a fall off U.S.S,R, but we haved a War of 5 Years in order to exit from that brutal regime.Peace and greatings to Czech Republic from Croatia.
@@tomislavbosnjak7435 It's been a month, have you asked him?
What do you mean there were no private businesses? There were small businesses allowed
Geez this dude could probably track down a killer if he wanted to
You're damn right there.
He should
Sick this man on zodiac
They talked about Petscop, and if you've watched Game Theory's videos on Petscop, that's actually what Petscop was trying to accomplish
Hell this dude could probably _become_ a killer if he wanted to
The real Polybius was the friends we made along the way
That Playstation VR version though...
It's a pretty good game if you have a PSVR you definitely should try it out.
what does this have to do with his comment
@@cv5870 It's an actual game called polybius and I'm recommending it. Although I don't recommend the playstation vr.
400th like
Bullshit, i want the governemt to give me seizures and insomnia.
The most important thing I've learned from this video is that somehow there is still records of the most hidden conversations and information from the earliest stages of the internet which to me is just fascinating.
Mojang use to play into the myth, where in the update notes of each new version of the game they'd include "- Removed Herobrine." They haven't done this for years. Maybe it's simply because patch notes and changes are no longer put at the forefront of the launcher anymore, perhaps it could be that more people don't know what Herobrine is compared to those who do. In any plugin or mods' patch notes I've written I always include "- Removed Herobrine," because Mojang won't anymore. Granted, the Minecraft community who still remembers, may not care much anymore, too.
If you like Herobrine, I recommend From The Fog.
Besides an amusing gag, it's also an incredibly efficiently told horror story. It's just two words, but effective for what it is. What is being referred to, what is Herobrine? Why does it need to be removed in every patch? Does it come back somehow every time? You just don't know, and the mind races to consider the possibilities.
ULTRAKILL has a secret fishing level, and all the fish you can catch are labeled as 'size 1', and every patch since, the dev has included - removed size 2 fish
Or maybe they finally succeeded in removing Herobrine
@@sophdog2564or maybe they gave up
Theory: *"polybius is just geometry dash"*
Ahoy: "...with puzzle elements..."
Oh fuck we cracked the code.
Well, the 1st time I had heard of polybius was from a video by you tuber jessii vee and she said something about being eternally happy after playing polybius, but of course this person didn't talk about what the myth was in depth so what Im saying is that geometry dash is a rage game, not the urban legend mess that polybius is ( also i know this is a joke, right? )
thatjokerperson that would literally solve the reasons for the deaths
XD
Me and the boys pulling out of area 51 with the original polybius ROM
Nice
@@vorzky1164 nice porfile pic
That's what I was gonna say
soon...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Fun fact: I live in a town that could be considered a small suburb of Portland. This video is making me really tempted to ask around at old arcades and see if anyone remembers seeing a video game like this!
Please do and write under the comment what they told you
So did you?
@@TheCustomFHD he's gone
@@kuchikopi4631 he found out too much
Report:
No one really knows much. It seems like one of those things where everyone claims that the local arcade a town over definitely had a machine, and a few people almost remembered playing it, but also said that it could have been a different game that looked really similar. Or a case where they learned about it later and got a fake memory of playing it.
Also, for y’all saying that I disappeared, don’t worry. There were only 1 or 2 mysterious black vans around while I was asking people. Besides; someone like me would never get black-bagged by government offici
Despite this being such a incredible documentary, i have to say, the soundtrack slaps so hard on the key parts, the build up are just SOO GREAT
I actually purchased the soundtrack on Bandcamp (link's in the description).
@@Argumemnon me too, even though you can hear them on TH-cam. Totally worth it.
The soundtrack is made by Stuart too. He is a legend, a true modern renaissance man
@@Mene0 Four Byte Burger is what got me into his larger material. This guy is great.
@@simondaniel4028ah, a recent convert? Time to start working through the backlog, many classics to be had
One of the biggest missed opportunities ever is the fact that Polybius didn’t show up in the background of a Gravity Falls episode.
Yeah
We could pretend it is hidden in the mystery shack
Oh hey, there is the arcade cabinet. Unleash multiple power? *amnesia*
it did pop up in loki though
It was in the background for Loki at least I gasped when I saw it lol
Games being addictive was truly a horror story back when you needed to put 25 cents in each time just to play
I live in Japan ad its minimum a dollar or more to play
And nowadays you need to put hundreds of dollars in the games to play them. And that is if you are lucky! Because if you don’t do that you will have more fun doing a actual job then playing the actual games!
@@The_hot_blue_fire_guy for you maybe, I play fun games
@@austinsavage5962 that is the point! I also want to play games for fun.
But that is really hard because In order to actually have fun in most modern AAA games you need to spend hundreds of dollars because if you don’t it’s literally designed to be a slow boring Grind to even get close to seeing the full game!
I almost never play AAA games anymore because of that exact reason. I prefer smaller games that actually have value and don’t use there players like walking ATMs!
I’m not saying people can’t enjoy AAA games but it’s a literal fact that they have gotten a lot worse over the last 10 to 20 years because of all the forced monetizing that doesn’t really have to be there.
There used to be a point when you could just buy a game and get that game. It would be complete and functional from the start. Today you are lucky if your AAA live service you payed 120$ for Will function properly a year after release. And that is if you are lucky. Most of the time it will never get fixed it will forever stay broken.
@@The_hot_blue_fire_guy i dont play AAA games
It just dawned on me that Stuart's origin point of this myth (April 2000) was barely 6 months after the theatrical release of The Blair Witch Project, a film that owed its (frankly undeserved) success to what would now be called viral marketing.
Kurt Koller, enterprising individual that he is, attempted to duplicate that success and crafted something that is the Blair Witch game in all but name.
Gotta give him credit for sticking to his guns two decades later.
My best guess is that the myth existed before the internet on Kurt's town/city/whatever between arcade enjoyers and then Kurt immortalized it on his webpage. Countless other myths must have started and then died on countless towns around the world but only this received enough attention.
26:45 "I had the prankster's full name, and an approximate location; so I drove there and personally beat him to death with a crowbar."
O-o wth-
"The crowbar, violent, versatile and beats up a fabricator like hell"
Roll Ahoy end credits
A good lesson in how you not as anonymous as you think you are on the internet.
My God 😐😑😐
Wait what...
Polybius may never have existed in 1981... but it does now with all the fan-made games. An urban legend came to life.
I hope nobody dies in real life, as happened with Slenderman.
@@seatonluck5268 for real?
@@seatonluck5268 don’t you play me like that bro
Ah, the beauty of the internet
@@natanielfelipe
You mean Berzerk.
I have the REAL polybius game.
Where
@@oofmannhis livestream
You would have to reprogram it because the system to play it on is a radar display
Because so do I
*her*@@SlimecraftStudios
5 years later, what a freaking golden video. Truly a remarkable Gem, from the pacing of the story telling, the slow unveiling of more information to the mountains of word play.
There was another potential source to disprove the myth. As an 80s arcade adult (I used to visit multiple arcades every week) I knew several of the arcade owners. It was a fairly small scene and I think if you find any 80s Portland area arcade owner they can probably tell you the other owners of the era. Video Games and pinball machines were a significant capital investment, and the glossy single-sheet brochures from the arcade companies were what arcade owners had to make a big purchase decision on. So they all regularly visited each others arcades and played the new games, scoped out how many people were waiting to play and estimated the hourly income from machines at their competitors arcades. I remember talking to arcade owners in line playing Dragon's Lair for instance. I wasn't in Portland in that era but in New Orleans which was a big test market for arcades. Any game that had rumors of long lines would have attracted immediate interest by other arcade owners.
Also, video game arcades might have business records in the Portland area for that era still existing - knowing how many arcades there were and where they are located would give another angle to this really interesting documentary.
@@Dank445 I just realized this was only five days ago! Holy crap!
I've been trying to remember the name of a particular one , maybe you'll know Mark ? I'll try and describe it ...
It didn't have great graphics , just flat 2d. But the player would move a marker to form off squares , and try and take over more area than a computer AI doing the same thing.
At least I think that's what it was about from jogging memory , which mostly I think I just watched others play it.
I remember a next generation star trek episode , where they were playing what looked like a 3d version of this game. I think they called it stratageum , err something like it.
Some alien grand master of the game beats everyone , except Data ... who doesn't really beat him but forces stale mate.
Anyways that's just to give you some visual representation if it helps.
This game , what ever its name , is what comes to mind when I think of the Polybius mystery .
Add edit: Found a clip of the episode >>> th-cam.com/video/yIRT6xRQkf8/w-d-xo.html
And another edit: Okies now I remember the game play better , I think. Sort of a Tron thing , before tron. You maneuvered your light cycle type piece out and back to create a square which then changed color and you owned it. But in the rest of the screen there is a bouncing ball , which if it intersected the line of your square before you completed it , you die.
So it becomes more and more dangerous because the ball has less space to bounce in. Also making small squares/rectangles were safer than making big squares.
@@Mk101T I believe this is what you're looking for: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qix
@@DownTwisted Ahh ya ... Qix.
Thanks for solving that mystery :)
You put modern journalism to shame
I was thinking the same thing. This was extremely interesting! Even when he would show the dead ends it was still like AWWWW! haha You knew it wasn't real the whole time yet he made it compelling.
Yeah this was so amazingly good.
That's because modern journalism doesn't exist anymore...
Ahoy and the Internet Historian are both great at investigative journalism, I clap my hands to those guys, they do a wonderful job.
Uriel ProQ what's your opinion on the TH-camr Leminno? He's done a video on the Eight Spider myth and a few other mysteries.
Each year when October comes, I MUST watch this video again, it just fits so well with the Halloween theme and is such an excellent example of good journalism, even if it's a subject that doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things.
Me too! This has become my yearly Halloween tradition 😅
Polybius was an urban legend that became real
Or a teal event that became an urban legend
That's the bravest pronunciation of Galaga I have ever heard.
Robert Sides GuhLogguh
Galga
I think I gagged when he said that
Nothing at all wrong with his pronunciation.
@@fordprefect80 357 people disagree.
Ahoy: Polybius doesn't exist
TH-cam Gaming: Polybius - Browse Game
Current date: 25 Mar 2020
Original comment timestamp: "2 weeks ago"
TH-cam Gaming shutdown date: 30 May 2019
🤔
@@ikcikor3670 are you questioning my integrity
That PS4 game was quite trippy
@@TheSFMCreators Yes
For some reason I remember playing this on the mame emulator I never had the rom it always just showed up I never questioned it it was like a space shooter mixed with a maze when you die spinning black and white colors fill the background if you pass very colorful geometry would spin around in the background sometimes there would be very quite voices in the background saying wired things like spin listen fall and it would fade out also when you would shoot you would have to be strategic because the bullet would come out at random times after pressing the button
i love rewatching this video once in a while. the ending just feels so satisfying and the fact that this guy straight up found the source of the urban legend is impressive
I still come back to this video every so often just because of how damn good it is.
Same
I just discovered it for myself, but I know for damn sure I’ll be coming back to re-watch this video again and again for a long time.
German is my first language. "Sinneslöschen" is not a commonly used word (and I'd definitely do a double take if someone used it in conversation), but it's a perfectly valid and grammatically correct compound noun.
Quick rundown:
"der Sinn" means "sense" in this context (though it could also mean "mind", which I think is a more interesting interpretation).
"löschen" is a verb that means "to erase". However, pretty much any verb can also be used as a noun. "das Löschen" is the noun counterpart of "löschen" and it means exactly what you think, "the act of erasing". So, "das Löschen" can be used to form a compound noun just fine.
To form a compound noun, you sometimes have to change the ending of one of the words. "Sinn" is one of those. Essentially, the long version of the word "Sinneslöschen" would be "das Löschen des Sinnes", which translates to "the erasing of the sense/mind". "Sinn" is in the genitive case here, so when you shorten it, you keep the genitive ending.
Therefore, you get "das Sinneslöschen".
So, yeah. Weird, but grammatically correct, and given that German is such a finicky language and the person made all the right decisions when forming this compound word, I believe that they're a native speaker or have been living in Germany for a while.
A non-native speaker would have probably called it "Sinnlöschen".
Omg thank you why doesn't this have more likes!!!!
As someone with german heritage that doesn't speak any german I found this very interesting!
Interesting perspective. However, I disagree that it’s evidence that the creator of the myth was a native or otherwise highly fluent German speaker. Like you said, Sinneslöschen is correct, but weird. Coming from the perspective of someone looking to create a hoax, you don’t care so much about the details being 100% accurate so long as they’re believable. You don’t want people doing a double take or otherwise scrutinizing your work; you want people to look at it and go, “Yeah, that looks right. I’ll buy that.” As such, I think a native German speaker would use a more commonly-used form for the phrase even if he or she intended for the company’s name to mean “the erasing of the senses/mind.” Something less-fluent German speakers would more readily identify as grammatically correct. Something that wouldn’t draw attention to the possibility that the story could be a hoax. (Don’t know German myself, so I can’t give any examples.)
Personally, I think it’s more likely that whoever created the myth was familiar enough with German to know certain rules and patterns, but not enough to know which rules to use in which case, and he just got lucky and stumbled upon the correct form of “the erasing of the senses/mind.” That, or the creator used machine translation to translate “to erase the senses” and got back a mistranslation that happened to be correct for a different phrase.
Kinda fits with the context of polybius, it’s been reported to cause mental issues and sickness and it was made by “The erasing of the mind”
but sinnlöschen is also a legit german word :D
The amount of research you've done for this video game is astonishing which video game journalists these days don't even bother doing. Mad respect to you sir.
Daniel Apolinario I wonder if he knew people in person about it? Kim Justice is another guy who does long, yet edited videos with tons of research - these two are very similar.
500th like
He's a video games journalist who puts in this amount of research though, so clearly video games journalists _do_ do this. There's many other channels on TH-cam that do similar amounts of research. There's a reason TH-cam channels are winning emmy's these days. This channel definitely needs a few emmy's though.
TheUKNutter Kim „Wambo“ Justice.
Nor did the writers at GamePro in 2003, apparently.
This is so incredibly well produced. The sound, the visuals, the research, the writing. I know it’s years later, but well done. You knocked it out of the park.
At first, I thought this was something adding onto the original legend, but it was actually a really good and serious deep dive into it's history instead. Wow! I'm honestly impressed.
Fun fact: This video is mentioned on the Polybius Wikipedia page.
This is Stewart browns best-known work.
yep web.archive.org/web/20200430203826/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(urban_legend)
so much fun
Neat
50% maybe?
It isn't even funny how good this documentary is.
@@MultiCheeseLouise The word 'blatant' has negative connotations that I know you aren't intending but exist nevertheless
z Expected better
@@MultiCheeseLouise z just be quiet.
@@MultiCheeseLouise are you 12
@@MultiCheeseLouise Jack never said that. I did
as a portland resident it's cute to see the semi accurate depiction of our skyline at the start of the video. Thanks for taking the time!
sigh
@@dontspikemydrink9382 ?
this is one of the best video essays out there. great music, incredible amounts of research, cool animations, this has it all. not to mention that ahoy's voice is so soothing that i regularly put this on to go to sleep
12/10, would learn about an urban legend from an era i didnt live through again
"the game that doesn't exist"
My brain: *Petscop*
Obama. Please stop.
Me too Obama, me too
Kinda sounds like a thing my sister used and played with called my little pet shop
IamAhighApple Truly, it’s very far from it.
in all honesty i thought that too even after seeing the title
An hour long video and it still had less ads than a morgz video
Who
@@Joinord1e who?
@@apimpnamedslickback7115 a clickbait youtuber who copies mr beast
@@somedude8346 who
A while ago he used to make videos about trying candy/soda/foods from other countries.
Me at the start of the video: No way I’m watching an hour long video on an urban legend.
Me half way through: omg this guy is actually diligent and great at what he is doing. Subscribed!
These channels are what the TH-cam Join function was created for.
"I know you won't believe me, but I need to tell my story anyways." Is the most cliche creepypasta intro ever
One hour? I'm not going to watch a video that long.
*one hour later*
Dude you gotta watch this.
Quid Yossarian it is drama that kept you watching
ikr
I put it off for a little while and finally caved in. worth it
Quid Yossarian I said the same thing to myself xD
yup
the most famous quote of the greek philosipher polybius is ' do not write in the history books what is not confirmed as real '.
The rumour of polybius literally tells you not to believe it.
That's an interesting way of seeing it.
Do you know what he was referring to when he said that?
@@Thor-Orion basically 'dont believe something unless you have proof'.
Oh my god! It all makes sense now
@@Prauwlet213 this is a meme between herodotus vs theucydides in some yt community history
I think I've watched this video 20 times, it's definitely one of my all time favorites. I think Koller is the culprit...not the least because Polybius is listed as the most popular game ever on coinop, and is actually the most popular this week. If driving traffic to the site was the goal, it's definitely worked.
For me one of the BEST videos on TH-cam ever! I came back to it time and time again. Great visuals, climatic audio, interesting topic. Thank you for creating one of the crown jewels of TH-cam. ❤
“If they really wanted to make kids feel sick all they’d need to do is wait ten years for Nintendo to invent the Virtual Boy!”
Smooth.
Yep
I loved that thing
@@daimiondark1458 You’re fucked up
@@daimiondark1458 me too I spent hours playing with it. You lost track of time it was so addictive.
@@TheDavidish You were just trying to help right
You: polybius doesn't exist
Me: sounds like something polybius would say...
This is very true.
🧐
Can't ruin the 666 likes sorry. Here's a different like for you: 👍
*_MiB Open Up!_*
That's sus
There's a semi-local arcade near me that has a "Polybius" cabinet (obv not the "original" if that even exists, it's a fan-made version from early 2010s). I laughed out loud when I saw it. Made me come re-watch this.
I've watched this video probably half a dozen times or more, and I just don't get tired of it. One of my favorite urban myths, handled by a master content creator.
People can’t go on the internet and LIE. That’s ILLEGAL.
That’s perjury and it’s a felony so I guess Kurt is going to prison.
No it’s not
There are those who wish it was.
It should be.
@big crunch people can't do on the internet and JOKE. that's ILLEGAL.
In the comments of another TH-cam video I saw someone insisting that he'd seen Polybius (replete with the usual Men in Black fiddling with it, etc.) in an arcade at the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, NH in the early 1980s.
Mentioned it to a friend, and he immediately pointed out that the mall didn't exist until 1991.
MAJOR SCOOP! Polybius travels through time taking the whole place with it!
BAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I used to play it here in the UK 84 - 85 i remember getting a spectrum tape sent to me for getting the highscore.
Mandela effect.
That's all I have to say
Now goodbye
EnderGamer 1236 or by hypnotizing
Couple of years later, still my favorite Ahoy Video. Great Job. I keep coming back to watch this one again, Usually around my B-Day.
I heard this whole story at ten years old but about Pokémon and i buried my cartridge in the woods lol😅
I did the same with my GBA. I also threw away my copy of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky because the difficulty was frustrating to me. I was a feral child
lavender town syndrome?
@@SuperUmizoomi yes haha
I was literally worshipping my consoles because I thought they were magic
-Brilliant script
-Engaging music
-Excellent research
-Great narrating
you sir, deserve a box of cookies.
Coco Caramel he deserves a mansion full of cookies!
Or two!
He pronounces 'Galaga' both ways in the video. Ga-lar-ga is an in-joke he snuck in
Dialect?
Coco Caramel no I cannot imagine.
Now THIS is a Game Theory. Honestly how do you not have your own TH-cam red or Netflix show ?
Because effort & quality is less profitable than quantity.
+I have no life
Says someone who has 0 video's on his channel.
I'm pretty sure I can criticize anything without making a video. Every movie critic can go fuck themselves now.
Except that he's right. Quantity will always be more profitable then quality, even though quality is better received then quantity.
This has been proved time after time, just because he doesn't have any videos on his channel, doesn't mean he can't have a fucking brain capable of thought.
Gravity X I agree with him and "I have TH-cam videos."
Having videos are not , he's right instead of spending time and researching, Netflix would have bake it, with bullshit.
There's an 80's book simply called "Arcade", by Robert Maxxe, that I always get reminded of every time I hear about Polybius. Mind control, influencing the local teenagers and very strange machine internals.
I find it fascinating the amount of detailed investigation and thought goes into these. Specifically, the use of the sound of the bell when The Division Bell is mentioned, specifically High Hopes. As always, keep up the fantastic work, and I cannot wait to see your next video!
No one could hide from Ahoy and Lemmino
Lemmino is awesome, he makes super interesting stuff.
Been a lemmino sub since the top10meme days haha
And Inside A Mind
Aaaand Nexpo as well.
Imagine a collab..
SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A *GODDAMN EMMY*
This is better, he cites his sources and method.
Yup
666...ure welcome
That's what makes it awesome, he cites his sources.
@@Lawofimprobability That what makes the video intersting and make you see to the end.
Anyone still watch this for pleasure ? Amazing production and soundtrack! Don’t currr it’s been 6 yrs, I still watch this
you forgot one thing; evidence suggests the legend actually originated with tempest as that's the game two kids were playing before they collapsed. apart from that, though, this was very thorough
I love how the internet is like a living timeline. everything on the internet leaves a trace, like fossils of an infinite world.
Thank you way back machine lol.
After being on the internet for almost 25 years, I've had the opposite experience. There is so much that's now almost impossible to find. I started saving anything I especially liked, because I've found it's unlikely to still be around in 10 years.
Still, you're right - there are a lot of fossils still there, and it's fun to come across them.
Infinite!? Just because it was being used before you were born doesn't make it infinite, man. You're making me feel old over here. You probably have no idea what the Dewey decimal system is, do you?
So I guess we're fossils then, huh? Hey kid, just because the internet was around before you were born doesn't make it infinite. I'm gonna go to the library and check out a book of 60s electronics and try to find out if they still make this fuse I need for my uncle's record player.
Dog poop on your shoe leaves a trace too. Just saying 😁
Stu, if you ever suddenly disappear under suspicious circumstances, know that I'll make sure your work on this wasn't in vain.
I've already watched this video twice and I can't resist returning to it. It's just really neat. Good voice, interesting story, pleasing graphics. Every time I wanna put on a long video while I do something, I think about this one. This is just THE video for me.
Anyone else ever get the sudden urge to become incredibly skilled at a forgotten, no longer popular or obscure game? Nice ending too :) Also this guy sounds like my uncle.
1:04:12 That's very much how some of these legends begin. I recall seeing an arcade cabinet around 1983 which seemed "impossible". I was a kid, on a family holiday. The arcade would've been in Swanage, UK, by the sea-front.
Amongst all of the regular coin-ops you'd expect to see in that time and place (Battlezone, etc.) was one that blew me away: the visuals and audio were like nothing I'd ever seen. If you'd told me it had dropped out of the future, I would've believed you. It was a futuristic racer, with amazing full-colour 3D environments. My memory of it was incredibly clear, because it made such an impression on me. I recall a part where the track suddenly went vertical, straight up, like something out of F-Zero. I also recall the amazing sound when you passed through the start/finish stadium building, and could hear the crowd. It was jaw-dropping.
For literally decades I wondered what the heck I'd seen that day. I never saw the game again anywhere else, not in arcades, not in magazines, nowhere. Eventually I began to doubt my own memory of it, reasoning that the game I recalled seeing had surely been impossible in that era.
Then, poking around the internet one day, I found it: "Star Rider", by Williams. Turns out it was a Laserdisc game, which explains the audio-visual experience apparently being on another level. I was aware of Laserdisc games at the time (Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc.) but it didn't occur to me that this might also be a Laserdisc game because it seemed too interactive, with your racer moving around the track, not just some pre-rendered cartoon. Looking back, of course it was just a vehicle graphic slapped on top of pre-rendered track visuals that were being streamed from Laserdisc.
Anyway, showing that other Laserdisc game in your video reminded me of that "impossible" game I saw one time as a kid, back in 1983, and how easy it would've been to believe that something like that, glimpsed once and seemingly remembered by no-one else, had to come from some mysterious source :)
I doubt your memory of it too - I grew up in Swanage from the late 70s and through the 80s and practically lived in the arcades as a kid - we definitely never got Star Rider.
I remember the game because I played it when I went to London for a day in about 84 and being absolutely blown away by it - but it definitely never came to Swanage.
It's possible that you saw it in one of the big arcades in one of the nearby towns like Weymouth or Bournemouth - not Swanage
@@5ynthesizerpatel Interesting. As a family, we used to stay at a camp-site in a place called Langton Matravers (IIRC) so it would've been - at most - a short drive from there. I recall there being a large cinema near the sea-front, if that pins it down at all?
@@blatherskite3009 - yes - that arcade is still there, although these days it's just filled with coin pushers, claw machines and machines to win tickets which you exchange for stuff you can buy in poundland.
The only things I can think of are that arcade was (maybe still is) owned by the same company that owned the biggest arcade in Bournemouth and another in Weymouth (I think), and Star Rider just did a brief turn in Swanage before being shipped to another arcade - and I missed it as I was away on holiday - it's not impossible.
Alternatively the travelling funfair that came every summer used to have a decent little arcade section as well - maybe you saw it there and are just misremembering.
Like I said, I pretty much grew up in that arcade for around 15 years and never saw Star Rider there - but do remember it elsewhere
Ha! I remember seeing that game in an arcade in Fort Worth, Texas in 1986 (when it was actually already a few years old, but I wasn't following these things closely) and being blown away by the look of it. I correctly guessed that it was a laserdisc game, though.
ok
I've played Polybius. I was drunk though and it turns out it was just Puzzle Bobble.
I've lost all senses playing Puzzle Bobble by music alone.
Celina Chimera
Bubble Bobble made me gain senses, but Puzzle Bobble made me lose them
@@bashfulwolfo6499 they were very different games amd both incredibly hard. But bubble bobble was the original so of course it's better. Puzzle Bobble was just a.fun arcade game. I love the music now. Its my ringtone lol.
Had me in the first half not gonna lie
@@SirNickyT tell me where you played it
I love the amount of time and effort put into the video, from the pixel art of the arcades to the amount of time and dedication spent into researching everything about the source of the information! My only complaint would be about the possibility of the puzzle on that website it originated from however that might have been a sidetrack anyway. Maybe someone solved the puzzle considering that this video is somewhat older now
No matter how many times I watch this documentary I always find it enthralling. Excellent production.
The fact that this guy made the music for this video too just blows me away
He w h a t
@@zgrb yeah i had the same reaction
He makes everything himself as far as I know.
He’s a man of focus, commitment, sheer, fucking will!
@@sweethysteria8737 soy Reddit moment
We all want to believe the Polybius legend but Ahoy broke it down so surgical and beautifully that it's impossible to say he's wrong. The research is impeccable and the entire documentary is extremely well-made for a game that doesn't exist and has no evidence of existing.
But there’s still one minuscule chance..
I WANT TO BELIEVE
Ahoy works for the FBI, he wants us to think its fake
Ahhh what? Im half way through the clip waiting for the evidence proving that it did exist. Sigh.
I'll continue watching it anyway. I guess I really wanted it to be real... oops
Then next time don't read the comments you stupid bitch
James C.
There’s no reason to be insulting.
This is awesome. Love the voice acting for the interview recordings
Usually not interested in retro gaming or it's history, or just stuff like this, but about half way through this video and cannot stop listening! Very interesting story so far :)
Polybius was real, it killed my uncle. The machine fell on him when he bent over to pick up a quarter
OrlopRat42 haha 😂
Yes, it "fell"
OrlopRat42 that's just what the government wants you to believe
OrlopRat42 is that a jewish joke or something
MrSuamps 5000
Pls no my boney friends, do not betray good raptor.
31:29 "You can launch missiles with a Playstation 2"
*INCONCLUSIVE*
Well well well lets find out then
Well, I know what I’m going to do this weekend.
Prepare for *conclusion*
You can "launch" a missile with a simple toggle switch. Supposedly the CPU of the PS2 was capable of controlling the guided missile to a target.
Theoretically any basic computer could trigger the launch or even guide a missile, including the PS2, though it’s unlikely due to the difficulty of running arbitrary code and it’d just be easier to use a conventional computer
I've NEVER in all my years heard some pronounce "Galaga" the way you did in the beginning man lol. Fantastic vid. I can't imagine the amount of hours you wasted on research for this! Extremely fascinating...
Your voice also is awesome. I remember you from back in the old COD videos you made that I stumbled across.
This was probably the most random/coolest video I’ve ever stumbled upon. So well put together, with knowledge, illustration, and delivery. I’d love to just have a conversation with you one day.
FBI: Winners dont use drugs!
CIA: *allow us to introduce ourselves*
and that's why they're not winners
Enter the FDA..
FBI: Winners don’t do drugs
CIA: Winners do drugs
ATF: Winners can’t do drugs if we shot you before hand in a raid claiming you had illegal weapons.
@P L well, since you bring up the subject, the FBI only has authority to work domestically, within the US, and is, at least theoretically, always subject to US law. The CIA, with permission and resources to work on "foreign soil," can, theoretically, be granted immunity by the US government for operations overseas. Basically, (as long as they're not caught by foreign law enforcement), the CIA, working abroad, can return "home" and foreign governments can only, at best, have to formally request extradition from the US for crimes committed in their own territory. So theoretically, the CIA is far more powerful than the FBI. I have no citations and only a minimal legal background, but I'm not totally making this up either. ;P Yours, Snowden
The CIA doesn't win tho tbh
This is so good that I'm almost feeling guilty watching this for free.
Disable AdBlock and watch it a few times! )))
always turn off the adblock for you favorite channels
Me too
he has a patreon
try getting as many ads as you can
refresh and refresh over and over again watching the ads :v
I come back to this video every now and then, definitely a TH-cam classic. A video in this style on the Dodelston messages would be awesome
It exist, but I used the last machine's spare parts to fix my truck.
Really?!?!?!?
@@thischannelisdead842 yea, i can now mk ultra feds as I drive.
It's not just a video.
*It's a movie.*
Jax Drummond D O C U M E N T A R Y
I came 'cause of the quality
Documentary
Really!1!!!1
no it's a HORROR MOVIE
How is this not an officially recognised Polybuis documentary? This was unbelievable from the narration to the sound effects, giving it that spooky yet trance like feel and the research putting in must of took years. This is up there with some of the very best video game documentaries.
Although it's all just urban myth and legend and there really is no proof that this mysterious game had ever existed other than hear say and 2nd and 3rd party accounts, I found it really interesting how you mentioned the US government program MK Ultra. This is something could've happened as they experimented with drugs such as LSD and what effect it had on the mind to then enable them to program Manchurian candidates. So with all the flashing strobe light effects and colours along with their history of subliminal messages around the time it is possible although unlikely as it may seem.
Yeah - a while back, I wasted 90 minutes on a far more boring documentary on Atari's ET, and the landfill excavation...
Maybe if you convinced some tinfoil hatters to excavate a landfill in Portland, Or, you could sell this to the history channel.
You may need to tone down the skepticism a bit, tho.... :)
Because it didn't exist
Officially recognized by whom? The official documentary association? This video is as official as any documentary.
+B33FY2015 Hey man if the U.S. government was perfectly willing to use LSD to induce mind control, then honestly making a video game to induce mind control is honestly far more believable.
I think he's talking about the fact that a "comedy" video and a "theory" about Polybius is more popular than this video.
Amazing video! Incredible amount of work you put in this videos!
my friend and i joke that this documentary is our "baby sensory video" for ourselves, since we always come back to it eventually.
Someone played this over their mic on a X10 tf2 higher tower server, and we all were hooked. Half the time all of our team went friendly to just listen. So very nice video
Lol this is such a TF2 thing to happen.
@@johncavanaugh3960 for real lmao
Tf2 moment
Lol tf2 is in my reccomended even when it’s not a tf2 vid
@r33mote tf2 is one of the most popular games on steam to this day. Sadly the game has been overrun by 'bots'. Which are essentially accounts controlled by A.Is that use aimbot and votekick non-A.I players
Everyone: "Where is Polybius?" " Who is Polybius?"
Ahoy(StuBro): "Why is Polybius?"
But nobody asks how is polybius
@@felwinterslie8223 Well, he's been dead for over two thousand years so the answer is...not great.
Drax lol
How is polybius?
I just wanna mention that this is my go-to video if I wanna go to sleep... I tried watching it 3 times by now, and it didn't work even once. Such a calming voice
Hi Stuart, just wanted to say kudos and thanks for such outstanding content; not just this magnum opus but all the videos of yours I've seen. I don't know what you do for a living, if not this, but you are a great writer and presenter. This video has me hooked (I'm half way through) even though I know the conclusion (or do I?!) Stay safe, and thanks again.
If I ever go missing, I want you in charge of the search. Impressive.
Same here
"Jumpscare, and roll the credits..."
me: oh- oh ok.
Sounds like cinemasins
what were you expecting...
@@pepethefrog50 I dont remember lol
I loooooove the videos you make! so much detail and great narration. Thank you! Also the soundtrack is amazing too! Cathode Rays is so sick!
I come back to this video occasionally when I need a refresher in what amazing content looks like.
I've commented before and I'm sure I will again.