Polybius

Polybius is a fast tunnel shooter playable on a standard screen or in VR. You blast, boost and fly through 50 geometric environments set to a fast-paced soundtrack, collecting power-ups and chasing higher scores as your speed and the danger increase.

Shooting and boosting

Boost gates raise your speed: going faster earns more points but also puts you at greater risk. Power-up pills can increase your firepower, make you invincible, launch you to stratospheric speeds or slow down time. The game has no bosses, and you never have to replay a section; progress is kept even when you lose a life.

Game modes

Polybius has three arcade modes:

• Pure: start from the beginning and see how far you can get.
• Endurance: start from the beginning with a fixed number of lives; you receive no extra lives during the run.
• Normal: choose to restart from any level you have reached before.

In Normal mode, the Restart Best system starts you with the best score and number of lives you have previously had at that point. You can improve these records for individual levels over time, building a stronger starting point for higher scores.

The inspiration

Polybius takes its inspiration from an urban legend about an abstract, psychedelic arcade game supposedly released briefly in the 1980s. The story claimed that people who played it experienced strange and unpleasant psychological effects, and included rumors of the CIA and Men in Black. The legendary game has never been found; Polybius reimagines the idea with the intention of having positive effects on players.