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Trivia / Polybius

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  • Colbert Bump: The Polybius myth entered the mainstream consciousness with an appearance in the September 2003 issue of GamePro magazine, in an article investigating the veracity of video game Urban Legends. (Polybius was deemed "inconclusive".) The article's author, Dan Amrich, has since confided that he was clued into the Polybius myth by Kurt Koller, proprietor of coinop.org, which features the earliest known mention of Polybius in any medium. (He says on the record that he now believes Koller was baiting him, and that he fell for it.)
  • Defictionalization: To our knowledge, no company by the name of Sinneslöschen has yet turned up to sue either.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: If the game existed, it would be this personified. (Perhaps for safety reasons)
  • Life Imitates Art:
    • The Rogue Synapse can most definitely cause significant discomfort if its full visual effects are enabled; and the Playstation VR version was specifically designed to have psychological effects - just positive ones.
    • It is suspected that the rumors of Polybius were based on versions of Tempest. The co-author of the PSVR version is Jeff Minter, who wrote several Tempest sequels - although his version of Polybius is quite different from Tempest.
  • No Export for You: Needless to say, this is mostly an American Urban Legend, but, due to the Eagleland Osmosis and Parody Displacement, some parts of this legend went abroad, albeit not as a game, but as normally as anti-video game propaganda, especially in Latin America.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: The game's very existence is one.

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