Polybius Lives! Part 1 (Premium E324) Sample

QAA Podcast

Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky

News

4.3 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1981 an arcade cabinet began popping up all over the Portland area called Polybius…or at least…that’s the claim. Released by a company called Sinneslöschen, the game used a graphics rendering technology that was impossibly ahead of its time. Kids that played reported having migraines, hallucinations, and memory loss while others became vehemently anti-arcade. But, just as quickly as the machines appeared, those same men in black soon took them away. No one has seen one since. What is the truth behind Polybius? A military recruitment program? East German video game technology? Mere urban legend? In part one of this two-part episode, Jack LaRoche guides us through the background and usenet-sourced tales of this legendary arcade cabinet. Jack LaRoche https://bsky.app/profile/coyotespeaks.bsky.social Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Produced by Liv Agar and Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm
0:02.0	Oh,
0:03.0	Oh,
0:04.0	Oh,
0:05.0	Oh,
0:07.0	Oh,
0:08.0	Oh, If you're hearing this, well done, you found a way to connect to the internet.
0:36.6	Welcome to the QAA podcast, Premium
0:39.1	Episode 324. Polybius lives. As always, we're your host, Jake Rakitansky, Jack LaRoche,
0:47.3	Julian Field, and Travis View. Portland, Oregon, 1981.
0:56.5	The year is 1981.
0:58.8	If you're like anthropically inclined,
1:01.2	maybe you're heading to the carpeted floor of a Malibu Grand Prix amusement center.
1:03.6	After spending an afternoon at the multiplex
1:06.0	watching Wolfen, the Howling,
1:08.4	or an American werewolf in London,
1:10.5	the bright lights of space invaders and defender are illuminating the faces of the teens bent over the cabinets.
1:16.6	There's still a line for the new Pac-Man machine, and you can hear the Waka-Waka-Waka
1:21.6	over Russia's moving pictures blaring from the loudspeakers.
1:25.6	The scent of smoke is strong in the air. In fact,
1:28.2	ashtrays are set up beside a lot of the video game cabinets and built into the pool tables.
1:33.5	It's the heyday of American arcades, and you heard that there's a new unmarked machine
	...

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