The Story
Brian Kilmer is new to the big city. On the hunt for a job, but having no luck in scoring his big opportunity, he spends his days toiling around the apartment playing video games, working on his manuscript, and searching for jobs.
His life feels hopeless, and it seems like nothing is going to change until one fateful day when Brian finds himself in a deadly game conjured from the depths of Hell.
With his soul on the line, Brian has no choice but to beat the Devil at its own game.
The Urban Legend
Polybius is an urban legend circulating around arcades as long as I can remember. There’s a number of stories surrounding the game, but the most common story claims that it was a government psy-op used to indoctrinate kids at a single arcade in Portland, Oregon. Exposure to the game apparetently caused hallucinations, addictive tendencies, seizures and even suicide. meanwhile, a less interesting story is that the game was a prototype of Tempest that got released into the wild somehow. Whatever the case, it’s a cool, persistent urban legend in the gaming community. Countless romhacks, screen captures, articles, and homemade arcade cabinets have kept the legend alive through the years. Easily one of the best takes on the legend was the hilarious Polybius short film by James ‘Angry Video Game Nerd’ Rolfe of Cinemassacre.
Why Did I Write Polybius?
In the 1990’s, I was an arcade rat. I couldn’t get enough of classics like Police Trainer, Metal Slug, Mortal Kombat, and Primal Rage. Having spent so much time in arcades, I came across the legend of Polybius.
A horror fan, I though the story was cool and didnt think about it for years until I started building my own arcade cabinet. Suddenly it dawned on me - I should build a Polybius cabinet.
Not long after, I started penning a short story about Polybius, but with my own spin. That spin was using the world and characters of my Smash! series, but instead of following my favorite helper monkey, the story is follows his handler’s mate, Brian, and the villain isn’t the US government, it’s the Devil itself.
Of course, Smash! is a comedy, so there’s plenty of slapstick, but at the same time the Devil is no laughing matter - well, mostly - so Polybius was penned as a sort of Halloween special to Smash!
Since Laia aka the Devil is never truly defeated, even by her holy nemesis, Gaia, Polybius will be followed up with several quasi-sequel specials. After all, I have an old zombie novella that’s gathering dust now that the genre has beaten to death, so why not repurpose it as a comedy-horror?
The custom arcade cabinet (in progress) built to resemble the legend that inspired the novella.