The Mysterious Case Of Menticide For The Atari VCS Part One (An Atari Ninja Investigation)

Menticide was an allegedly unreleased game for the Atari 2600. Supposedly it was programed by Howard Eldritch and if the game really did exist, it would be the only game that Eldritch ever actually made. According to the rumors that I've heard and read over the years the game was so disturbing that Howard Eldritch was immediately fired after he presented the prototype version to his boss at Atari.

Howard's boss at the time was none other than Nolan Bushnell, the actual founder of Atari, and eventually Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza too. Many have called Mr. Bushnell the godfather of video gaming and I think he really does deserve that title. Supposedly Howard Eldritch's career at Atari ended before Bushnell left the company, so he must have been among the original group of programmers, because Nolan Bushnell left Atari towards the end of 1978, and the Atari VCS was commercially launched on 09/11/77, the day before my fifth birthday (and some of you have actually wondered why I have such an obsession with the Atari 2600).

The name of this strange game; Menticide, is an actual word. According to Dictionary.com, the word refers to the systematic effort to undermine, and destroy a person's values and beliefs. To use intense interrogation methods, drugs, and torture to induce radically different ideas into someone's mind. In some ways, the word kind of refers to brainwashing, or just completely destroying a person's mental identity, or their psyche.

Very little is known about the actual contents of this video game called Menticide short of the fact that supposedly the game's graphics were of the typically crude variety. I say 'typically crude' because a great many of the early games for the Atari Video Computer System were quite simplistic, even a lot of the good ones too. But, the graphics of the game-play weren't the disturbing part. The truly disturbing element of the game allegedly involved subliminal images, or perhaps messages that were implanted into the graphics. These basically invisible subliminal elements would leave people feeling queasy, or generally psychologically disturbed, and in some cases it was known to trigger hallucinations. These hallucinations were supposedly very realistic and were allegedly known to cause very frightening flashbacks that could occur anytime after even a single viewing of the game actually being played.

Of course, none of this can be confirmed, and the very existence of the game is really just a rumor. But, I need to know the truth, and I've devoted a great deal of my time over the last couple of years to uncovering any information that I can about Menticide. And I swear, eventually I will get to the bottom of the whole saga of this elusive video game.

-Jay