Joust review: flap, climb, and win by being higher

A knight on an ostrich hovers over a pool of lava. Enemy knights on buzzards circle the floating ledges. There is no gun and no sword swing. You win a fight by crashing into the other rider, and the rule that decides every crash fits in five words: the higher lance wins.

A game built on height

The designer, John Newcomer, came to Williams from a job as a toy designer, and he wanted a flying game that avoided the space theme everyone else was using. He also threw out the standard eight-direction joystick. You get a two-way joystick for left and right, and a button that flaps the wings. Tap it fast and you climb. Ease off and you sink.

That control scheme is the whole game. Height is not something you simply choose; you have to earn it with a rhythm, and hold it while also steering toward someone. Meet an enemy level and you both bounce apart. Come in from above and he is finished. Every encounter turns into a small aerial dance about who can get on top first.

The higher lance wins. Five words, and the entire game hangs from them.

Eggs, a pterodactyl, and a hand in the lava

A beaten enemy does not simply vanish. He drops as an egg, and if you do not grab it, it hatches and a new knight climbs aboard a fresh mount. So every win leaves a chore behind, and a room full of unclaimed eggs is a room about to get worse.

Linger too long and a pterodactyl shows up to hunt you. Fly too low and a Lava Troll reaches up and pulls you under. The game keeps pushing you off the safe ledges and back into the air, which is exactly where it is most fun.

What it meant back then

Joust was the machine you played with a friend. Two players could clear the waves together, one on the ostrich and one on the stork, and it was never the first co-op game but it helped popularize the idea. The catch was that you could also attack each other. In a bowling alley or the back room of a pizza place, that single option decided whether a pair of brothers left as a team or not speaking.

It looked unlike anything beside it, too. No spaceships, no maze, just knights on birds over lava, and the steady flap sound carried across a crowded arcade on a Saturday afternoon.

Playing it now

The flap controls feel odd for about a minute and then feel perfect. Joust holds up because its rule is so clean: you always know why you lost a clash, and you always know what to do next time, which is get higher sooner. Find someone to sit beside you, agree on a truce, and see how long it lasts.