The early 80s gave us a whole host of🙈 arcade classics. However, while many of these games are still loved to this day, a few of them have not aged as gracefully as one would like. J🌌oust, then, may be the exception. With stunning sprite work for the day, charming sound effects that were a cut above the competition, and controls that feel both novel and intuitive, Joust is truly a standout title.
It feels like what helps Joust distinguish itself is how uniform the vision was. The tale of Joust's creation is the story of well-considered, unmuddled design. Every element was made to serve the core concept of flying a bird, and it all adds up to a remarkably deliberate and cohesive experience. While Joust itself is remarkably simple, there was a lot going on behind the curtain. There is bound to be a surprise or two in store for fans of this arcade classic.
10 ꦅ ♉ Double The Fun
While Joust isn't the first title to feature two-player action, it is one of the first games to popularize the concept. This was also a dynamic style of multiplayer. It was co-op, but it also provided the opportunityﷺ to fight your partner. This elasticity allowed players to choose how they would play with each other (as opposed to the game dictatin😼g their experience). Many friendships were surely lost.
Fun fact about the second player's bird in Joust: it is officially referred to as being a stork. However, , so he has said that in his own headcanon the second player is riding an albino ostrich.
9 Pave💮d The Way For The Flappy Birds Of The World
Joust may be one of the best implementations of physics in an early arcade game. It included a "flap button" into its control scheme. This means that the player's character will gradually lose altitude, but will quickly gain it with a press of this button. This was all in service of conveying the feeling of being on a bird. Because a bird should control di💞fferently than your standard spacecraft.
A great deal of emphasis was placed on the idea of flight, and this innovative control scheme would end up being utilized by a number of notable games afterward, ranging from Nintendo's Balloon Fight to the modern classic, Flappy Bird.
8 🅷 Its First Followup Is A Pinball Machine ♏
While many arcade titles had follow-ups, the second Joust game to be made wasn't actually an arcade sequel. Instead, it was a pinball game. And it is also super interesting. This isn't your typical Pinball setup; instead, it was designed with a head-to-head format. This means that players would play on opposing ends of the table and send balls each other's way. Making a vs. pinball machine. This is similar to the notable multiplayer mode in Akira Psycho Ball for the PS2.
If you think this sounds super neat (because it is) and are planning to go pick one of these machines up, get ready to shell out the big 🍒bucks. This machine is, unfortunately, extremely rare, as they only ever made a small supply of them (estimated to be around 500 units in total).
7 Iwata's First Game For Nintendo
That's right. . The game ended up having a bit of a rocky road to release, as established deals between Nintendo and Atari ended up falling to pieces. However, while it wasn't released by Nintendo itself, HAL labs were able to eventually publish the game.
While Nintendo backed away from Joust, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:they didn't back away from Iwata. He would go on to work on a number of notable releases for the company and would eventually climb the ladder all the way to the top. One of those notable releases, by the way, is Balloon Fight. Which is a very similar game to Joust. That probably isn't a coincidence.
6 ꧙ 🌌 An Auditory Experience
While the sprites are beautifully detailed for a game released in the early 80s, what is quite possibly the most impressive technical element is the sound design. As with every other element in the game, the prime directive was to make sure to capture the flapping sound for the birds. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Impressi⛄vely, the crꦗunchy, compressed beeps are, in fact, able to convey just that.
Another fun element is the skidding to a halt sound . Ultimate𒉰ly, these simple soundbites helped give Joust a lot of character and reinforced all the key components of the design.
5 Permissive Design ꦍ 🎉
One of the fascinating things that emerged after the release of Joust is the ability for people to squeeze into tiny little gaps in order to sneak up on opponents. This was absolutely unintentional and unforeseen during development. However, the developers soon saw this for what it was: a skillful technique that rewarded higher-level play. This is an example of gameplay emerging organically. The same type of things that would define🎃 some of the greatest fighting games ever.
That being said, the developers weren't so permissive that they would let tactics destroy the earnings of their games. Another exploit that was found saw players quickly racking up tons of extra lives by exploiting the pterodactyl hit-box and scoring easy kills, and that was patched out.
4 A Killer Tribute 🍸
Joust has taken a place in the pantheon of arcade great games. While it hasn't had a sequel in quite a few years, the spirit of Joust lives on in the form of the fantastic spiritual successor: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Killer Queen. Killer Queen features similar core mechanics but elaborates on all of them. Now there are more varied win conditions, and you have a larger arsenal of attacks. Killer Queen has maintained a dedicꦰated 🐲community and ensures that Joust will maintain its relevance into the future.
As a fun side note, there is a classic rock connection. Joust was inspired to some degree by Flash Gordon, a movie that was scored by Queen. Killer Queen is, of course, one of the hit singles released by that same classic British rock band. Freddie Mercury's influence simply refuses to die (and thank god for that).
3 A Stran𝔍ge Friendship
While Joust has a number of connections to other games in the industry, there is one reference that is absolutely to kill for. Everyone's favorite conniving, shapeshifting sorcerer, Sha💯ng Tsung, directly references the game in his Mortal Kombat 3 friendship finisher.
Of course, Mortal Kombat has a history of wedging classic references into their games. In fact, you can play Galaga in Mortal Kombat 3. Still, this may be the only instꦯance of a character from another franchise having a cameo role in a finishing move.
2 Inspired By The Sa🍷vior Of The Universe
The idea for jousting winged battlers was somewhat influenced by the classic Flash (ah-ah) Gordon film. More specifically, the scene involving the birdmen assisting Flash Gordon in assaulting the empire's battle station.
It does appear that Newcomer mulled over a number of ideas for Joust's replacement of the spaceship, so the Flash Gordon influence probably shouldn't be overemphasized, but . This does mean that a Brian Blessed, adorned with wings, played some role in the creation of this inspired classic.
1 💞 🎉 Birds Over Spacecraft
In the early days of arcade games if you were flying, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:you were in a spaceship. Joust's developers wanted to mix this up. In order to stand out, they went with knights on birds. Originally, they wanted to go with eagles, but since eagles don't have the kind of running ability they were looking for, they went with the ostrich instead (and the stork for the second player). You know, to be more believable.
Of course, buzzards were immediately chosen as the birds foওr the enemies, as buzzards are clearly the evil birds. Outside of the many oddly strange preconceived notions about birds, this clearly made for a very original🔜 direction to move in and helped Joust stand out among its peers aesthetically.
