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Game Controls

Arrow keys to move. Control key to flap wings.

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Joust – Origins of a platform gaming classic

Considered one of the top 10 hits of the early 80’s gaming titles, Joust was a classic standalone arcade game machine that took the industry by storm. Released onto the market in 1982 by ‘Williams Electronics,’ a company that was just getting into video games after successfully dominating the pinball machine field. At first sight Joust had a similar look and feel to many other platform games of the time, including Donkey Kong, Berzerk and the first Mario Brothers, but it was its unique game-play that won over the majority of gaming enthusiasts.

Taking a risk the developers of Joust decided to go against the popular trend of the time and create a title that didn’t include space ship styled shoot-em-ups or anything to do with killing robots. They chose to focus on giving players top quality graphics and a never before seen medieval theme that saw knights riding around on an ostriches. Jousts background was made up of several carefully positioned rock platforms on-top of a pitch black backdrop. There was no real storyline; the player assumes the role of a yellow knight who must kill a group of evil knights in order to progress to the next level. The controls were relatively simple consisting of a joystick for directional movements and a button for flapping the ostrich’s wings; the more you hit the action button the higher the character would fly. To kill another knight you must charge at him whilst flying at a higher level; if you hit the enemy while at a lower level to him you inevitably lose a life and have to start all over again.

Since its popular release there has been various other follow up games including ‘Joust 2, survival of the fittest’, a pinball machine version, a standalone handheld joust electronic game and scores of copy-cat titles made for various consoles, such as Ostron, Dragon Hawk, Balloon Fight and Winged Warlords. Released in 1986, Joust 2 stayed true to the original feel of the game with identical controls, but a much improved level of graphic quality and punchier sound effects. The developers also included 2-player ability and a special morph feature which allowed the character to transform its ostrich into a Pegasus with stronger attacking power. Although this second version was a success in its own right it sold far fewer copies then the original; though it is believed that this lack of sale ability was less to do with its quality and more to do with the sudden slump in video game sales which occurred at that time, affecting the whole of the gaming industry.

In its time Joust has been ported onto various gaming consoles as well as onto the internet and has inspired the release of a number of unique remakes, some of which have been popular and others that have simply faded out of the limelight. One of the favorite remakes was developed for the Gameboy Advanced and called ‘Dactyl Joust’, it stayed true to the original game-play while offering players better graphics using 3-D styled rendering, screen scrolling in all directions and much smoother control actions.

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