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Psychedelic Game Designer Jeff Minter Is Making a Fabled Arcade Game for PSVR

Polybius, the boogieman of the arcade, will be coming out on PlayStation VR.
Image: Sony.

Polybius is an arcade urban legend. It supposedly appeared in Oregon in the early 80s, where it left kids in panicked states and experiencing strange visions. Some say it was a sort of government mind control prototype. Others believe Polybius were just broken telephone stories of Tempest, an arcade classic that's trippy in its own right.

Psychedelic game designer Jeff Minter, who took over the Tempest series in 1994 with Tempest 2000, is heavily insinuating that he's played the real deal, the real Polybius. On Friday, he announced that he's working on a Tempest-like game for Sony's virtual reality device, PlayStation VR, and he's calling it Polybius.

"In the corner, beneath a sheet, was hidden a single somewhat unusually-shaped [arcade cabinet]," wrote Minter on the PlayStation blog. "I was informed again of the terms upon which I would be shown what was beneath: no pictures, no video, no precise descriptions of gameplay, definitely no locations that could pin it down to anywhere closer than just the vicinity of darkest Basingstok (UK). Broad descriptions were ok, and of course the name is legendary. Mythological, even."

Polybius will soon exist, created as a psychedelic PlayStation VR title by Minter. On top of raising llamas and smoking weed, Minter was recently subjected to some legal bullshit from the Atari estate, which claimed his more recent games were too similar to his own previous work, so news of the legendary designer working on something original is refreshing and exciting news. Speaking as someone who aspires to do drugs and use VR, I am glad that someone on the other end of the production cycle will be one step ahead. Now to just hope this isn't another MKUltra attempt. Ah fuck it, I'll play it anyway.