article

Joust is a classic arcade game by Williams Electronics that was produced in 1982.

Description

The player takes the role of a knight with a lance, mounted on a flying ostrich or stork, battling waves of computer-controlled enemy knights. The enemy knights are of three different speed and agility levels and are mounted on giant vultures. The game screen is static; its only features are five platforms hanging in mid-air (some wrapping around the screen), the ground, and a pit of lava below.

The game's incredibly simple controls are a factor in its wide appeal. A joystick moves left and right, and a "Flap" button flaps the mount's wings once. Pressing "Flap" in rapid succession will cause a gain in altitude until gravity drags the player downward.

Gameplay

Each wave begins with enemy knights appearing on the screen at one of four "spawn points." To destroy an enemy knight, the player has to collide with the knight while his lance is vertically higher than the enemy knight's lance. After destroying an enemy knight, a giant egg will appear and fall, bouncing on the ground. The player has to go touch (and thus destroy) the egg, gaining additional points; if this act takes too long, the egg will hatch and another, more powerful enemy knight will appear and continue the fight against the player.

A wave is cleared when the player destroys all enemy knights and eggs. If too much time elapses on a particular wave before this occurs, the dreaded pterodactyl will appear from one side of the screen and fly around until it collides with the player, destroying him; until the player finishes the wave; or until the player destroys the pterodactyl by hitting it directly in the mouth with his lance, a difficult task.

Two players can play Joust, and each player will get points for destroying the enemy knights, and also for destroying his human opponent. Cooperative play is possible by agreement between the players, but they will still kill each other if they are to collide.

A lava troll inhabits the lava pit at the bottom of the screen; if any player or enemy knight flies too close to the lava, the troll's hand will emerge and tug the mount downward toward the lava. Players can get out of the troll's grip by hammering on the "Flap" button.

Cheats

One "bug" in the program's design became a strategic advantage to players in the know, later touted by producers as a "hidden feature". On the right side of the screen there are two platforms situated so that one is above and slightly overhangs another. If a player moves across the lower of the two platforms, the player will hit the upper one and be halted. However, if if a player flies their bird so that its belly skims the lower platform low enough that its legs do not extend, the bird will "belly flop" across the width of the platform, and, illogically, "squeeze" through the meeting point of the two platforms, popping out below the upper platform. Skilled players took advantage of this flaw as a gaming strategy: a player could suddenly pop out below the platform and land on an enemy knight below (or a competing player), catching him by surprise. Game creator John Newcomer stated in interviews that this flaw in the game's design was so popular, they decided to intentionally leave it in and it became a permanent part of the game.

Early ROM revisions of the game contained situation which a skilled player could exploit to accumulate an infinite number of points on certain waves, with low risk. The player would attempt to maneuver one of the enemy knights too close to the lava, such that the lava troll would grip it - not low enough to the lava so the troll would succeed in pulling it in, and not high enough so the enemy knight could escape the troll's grip. By doing so, the knight could never attack the player and distract him from performing the trick, and the wave would also never end. Then the player would stand in the middle of the platform in the center of the screen. The pterodactyl would appear from one side below the player and charge right at him; if the player simply stood in the middle of the platform, facing the pterodactyl, the player's lance would strike the pterodactyl in the mouth, killing it. A new pterodactyl would immediately appear from the other side of the screen, and could be killed in the same manner. This could be repeated indefinitely.

Legacy

The Joust Series

  • Joust (1982)
  • Joust pinball machine (1983)
  • Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest (1986): Joust 2 added a "Transform" button, allowing the player to switch between an ostrich and a pegasus. Because Joust 2 was released during the waning days of the golden age of arcade games, it did not achieve nearly the level of success that Joust did, and is now considered a collector's item.
  • Joust X: An updated version of Joust for home consoles was planned in the 1990s but never released.
  • Joust keychain (1998): Tiger Electronics created a handheld adaptation of Joust as part of its Extreme Chain Series.
  • Joust the Movie: John Newcomer has said in interviews that he plans one day to produce a film based on Joust.

Joust tributes and clones

  • DragonHawk (1983): This Commodore 64 game by Creative Software is a side-scrolling Joust clone.
  • Balloon Fight (1986): The NES game made by Nintendo features game play inspired by Joust.
  • Text-based Joust (2001): Part of a trend of computer programmers authoring text-based video games based on popular games, Joust was adapted by Jennifer Earl.
  • FlapPing (2002) (Originally named JoustPong but renamed for legal reasons.)
    JoustPong combines the classic video game Pong with the "Flap" feature of Joust, thus creating a very complex game with a simple one-button control. Game designer Kirk Israel originally created JoustPong for Windows, and later wrote JAVA and Palm OS versions. With the help of a network of programmers and designers, Israel has most recently created and distributed Flap-Ping for the Atari 2600.
  • Joust 3: Revenge of the Lava Troll (ca. 2003): Created by Iteration Games, Joust 3 combines elements and graphics from Joust and Joust 2 in a scrolling adventure game.
  • Joust : XBox Live Arcade, released in HD for the XBox 360 with the ability to play with another person over the internet on XBox Live. Priced at 400 Microsoft Points ($5).
  • In January 2006 at Nickelodeon's site a game similar to Joust based on the Spongebob Squarepants episode Dunces & Dragons was released .

Backstory

There is no backstory. The design is inspired by medieval jousting. However, the game never explains why the player is left virtually stranded in the lava pit, the identity of the enemy knights, or the nature of the creatures present.

Ports

Joust has been ported to the NES, Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, PC, Xbox 360, BBC Micro and Palm OS as well as Atari's own 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx and ST.

The Atari 2600 port is extremely simplified, due to its hardware limitations. The Game Boy port, packaged with Defender as Arcade Classic No. 4, is not very close to the original either. The somewhat better Game Boy Color port is also packaged with Defender, as Arcade Hits. The Atari ST port is a near-perfect conversion of the game.

In July 2000, Midway licensed Joust, along with other Williams Electronics games, to Shockwave for use in an online applet to demonstrate the power of the shockwave web content platform, entitled Shockwave Arcade Collection. The conversion was created by Digital Eclipse. It is currently freely available to be played within the Shockwave Web applet.

Digital Eclipse went on to port Joust, grouped with five other Midway games including Robotron and Defender, as Arcade Greatest Hits: Midway Collection 1 for the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, IBM PC and Nintendo 64, and with four other games as Midway Arcade Classics for Palm OS. An Arcade Greatest Hits: Midway Collection 2 disc was later released for the PlayStation that included Joust 2.

By far, the most accurate and well-documented Joust port is in Midway Arcade Treasures, a compilation of arcade games available for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles, as well as a Windows XP version. Midway Arcade Treasures features concept sketches, advertisements, and an interview with John Newcomer. It also includes Joust 2.

Joust was made available for download over Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service as of the launch of the Xbox 360.

Image:A2600_Joust.png|Joust on the Atari 2600
Atari (1983) Image:ST_Joust.png|Joust on the Atari ST
Atari/Rugby Circle (1986) Image:A7800_Joust.png|Joust on the Atari 7800
Atari (1987) Image:GB_Joust.png|Defender / Joust on the Game Boy
Nintendo (1995) Image:NES_Joust.png|Joust on the NES
Atari/HAL (1987)

External links

Mobile phone games | Arcade games | Williams games | NES games | 1982 arcade games | 1982 computer and video games | Atari 2600 games | Atari 5200 games | Atari 7800 games | Atari 8-bit family games | Atari ST games | Atari Lynx games | PC games | ZX Spectrum games | BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games | Joust

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Joust (arcade game)".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world