<p>Joust is an arcade game developed by Williams Electronics and released in 1982. It popularized the concept of two-player cooperative gameplay by being more successful at it than its predecessors. The player uses a button and joystick to control a knight riding a flying ostrich. The objective is to progress through levels by defeating waves of enemy knights riding buzzards.</p> <p>The player controls a yellow knight riding a flying ostrich from a third-person perspective. The player navigates the protagonist around the game world, which consists of rock platforms floating above a flat island surrounded by lava, via two-way joystick and a button. The joystick controls the horizontal direction that the knight travels, while the button flaps the ostrich’s wings. The rate at which the player repeatedly flaps causes the ostrich to fly upward, hover, or slowly descend. Moving off the left or right edges of the screen wraps around to the other side.<sup id="cite_ref-EG-Coin-Op_1-0" class="reference"></sup><sup id="cite_ref-Fever_2-0" class="reference"></sup></p> <p>The objective is to defeat the groups of enemy knights riding buzzards in each wave. Upon completing a wave, a more challenging one begins. Players pilot the knight to collide with enemies. The higher of two jousting lances is the winner. A collision of equal height repels the characters apart. A defeated enemy turns into a falling egg which can be collected for points. If the player does not collect the egg, it hatches into a knight that gains a new mount and must be defeated again.</p> <p>There are three types of enemy knight–Bounder, Hunter, and Shadow Lord—which are separate colors and worth different amounts of points. A pterodactyl appears after a predetermined time frame to hunt the hero. The disembodied hand of an indestructible Lava Troll grabs any character flying too low and pulls them into the lava.</p> <p>In a two-player game, the second player controls a blue knight on a stork. The two players cooperatively complete the waves, optionally attacking each other.</p>
