The History of Joust – arcade console documentary

where [Music] flying ostriches and yellow knights evil buzzers didn't read Knights mix them together and with the seemingly invincible pterodactyl and you've got the makings of the successful Williams electronics arcade game Jost at a time when most successful flying games involved either asteroids or spaceships this one stood out from the pack with its unique style of gameplay what 1980 sci-fi movie was an influence on this game what concept was a close second right behind flying ostriches so put on a flappy face because we are going to talk about the history of joust the year is 1981 and designer John newcomer had just started at Williams electronics mr. newcomer had been employed as an inventor and toy designer for a company in Chicago but was fascinated with a new breed of electronic entertainment he had worked on LED handheld version of some of the most popular arcade games including centipede and space invaders but was just not satisfied with the results due to proximity he gravitated towards Williams Electronics which was also based out of Chicago his first task after being hired was to create a treasure chest which was a folder filled with game ideas and concepts that any programmer could go through his two favorites were War of the Worlds which was based upon the popular book and movie and the other one was joust at the time Williams did not have the technology available to do what mr. newcomer had a vision so the idea stayed on the shelf jaws could be done on current defender hardware with the current joystick designs teaming up with programmer bill foots intruder they decided to use the existing defender Hardware since at his core jelous was going to be a flying game I quickly made a list of everything that could fly from planes to da Vinci contraptions squirrels vampires superheroes birds and so on mr. newcomer was very close to creating a superhero arcade game but felt the appeal would be lost on female gamers he kept gravitating towards birds as he had been a fan of mythology science fiction and the 1980s cult classic Flash Gordon in the movie Prince Volta and his army of winged bird men become allies of Flash Gordon as they take down the evil Ming the Merciless when designing the game he had an epiphany when he realized that by having the player press the button every time no wings flap they could control the speed he felt this would strengthen the emotional connection between the player and their giant steed this was the early 1980s and you had a flying game with no shooting a vault which proved to be a huge gamble but in the end it paid off since you constantly have to press the flat button in order to fly it's more of a game against gravity than anything else the game allows for two players simultaneously with the second player riding a giant stork something mr. newcomer was not happy with the programming team had only 96k of memory for the entire game which limited the sounds animation and size of the graphics they only had a palette of 16 colors to use for the entire game to get the animation of the flying creatures just right they use the book animals in motion as reference since memory was limited mr. newcomer had prioritized the sounds of the birds make when they flapped their wings another thing they added is a nod to the Roadrunner cartoons was the sound your ostrich makes when he screeches to a halt similar to the sound when roadrunner stops running in a joust is a simultaneous to clear arcade game released by Williams Electronics in 1982 you take control of the yellow knight who was armed with the Lance as you attempt to stop the other knights who are writing the key will pull everything since there is no shooting involved in this game and you have to attack your opponent's from a higher jousting point to destroyed the knight and his culture what you do this in April fall onto one of the platforms down below you must destroy the eggs before they hatch and release new more powerful Knights to contend with if you and your opponent attack each other on the same plane it will bounce off without doing any damage the three types of Knights are the pounder which is the red Knight the hunter which is a white knight and shadow Lords which is the blue Knight as you progress through the game platform will harder crumble making it much more difficult be careful because there is a lava troll who will come up out of the lava and try to pull you in one last thing to contend with is the dreaded pterodactyl this was added to the players but hurry up against the level mister newcomer had designed to carry at him to be indestructible for one day right before the game was finished unbeknownst to him someone had modified the one of the creature and in doing so created an opening for it to be killed the shifting of one tiny pixel is all it took the game gradually gets harder and harder with more and more enemies doing upstream eventually you will come to the egg wave in which you have to grab all the enemy eggs before they hatch the game repeats indefinitely with the difficulty getting harder and harder we're an early 1980s arcade game the graphics and animation are excellent the sound effects while sparring are distinct and do a great job of conveying what's going on around you the use of the flat button was ingenious simulated gravity is really well done it has a huge strategic element to the gameplay Daoist was one of the first successful to players simultaneous arcade games it was also one of the first arcade games to ship with a battery backup system this allows ice cores to be saved if the machine was ever unloaded the game shipped in two flavors the standard upright and the much rare cocktail version the game was a monster success selling over 25,000 cabinets the game was so successful that it even spawned a pinball game the following year the unique thing about it was that a featured simultaneous two-player pinball action unlike traditional pinball machines this was shipped in a cocktail format with a divided play area players on opposite ends of the play field there were only a little over 400 of these ever made so they are extremely rare in 1986 Gauss - electric Boogaloo was released this feels more like a complete game than the first one watch better graphics animation and level design one big change is the use of a vertical screen which puts an emphasis on vertical flying in the game it's now possible to transform into a Pegasus which does have a distinct feel over your outreach the ostrich is lighter and has better maneuverability while the Pegasus is heavier and more powerful the backgrounds have also been increased as far as detail goes with 35 distinct backdrops and 101 different levels there are a number of other enemies to continue including a bat and robots the game is a lot of fun in my opinion but for whatever reason it just wasn't that big of a hit only 1000 units of the game were shipped the original game was a massive hit so of course the conversions were going to flow like wine by my count there were over 30 officially licensed versions of this game and that's not counting the various bootlegs and clones now I'm not going to cover all of them but ever will cover a couple of highlights and a couple of lowlights to be honest most of the conversions turned out pretty good but there were a couple of stinkers in the bunch got it doused [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] anteye presents just the video game where buzzard and battle ostrich man the graphics go beyond your wildest dreams [Music] the first one we're looking at is the spectrum version and while the backgrounds sort of resemble joust the actual character graphics do not to be honest with the way the main character turned out it should have been called the revenge of Kentucky Fried Chicken there is also a lot of flicker going on and loosed slippery controls next up is the Apple 2 version which to be honest is not too bad aside from the odd color scheme if this game would have come up 30 years before I would have thought this was where dr. Seuss got the idea for green eggs and ham the graphics and animation are nicely done but the sound is just atrocious at least it plays reasonably well you the Atari 2600 version while lacking in detail more than makes up for in speed and playability the trusty but perhaps rusty 2600 does a pretty good job the sound and overall it's a really good representation of the arcade game the Atari 7800 port was one of the eleven launch titles for the system and it's a fantastic conversion nicely detailed sprites with decent sound and pitch perfect playability one of the better arcade conversions on the system one of the best home conversions in my opinion would have to be the atari lynx version the graphics are nicely detailed despite the small size and the sounds are sampled straight from the arcade game one of the absolute best arcade conversions on the system the game has been released numerous times over the years including Williams arcade classics for the PC the Xbox Live Network and the PlayStation Network and that wraps up the history of joust if you grew up in the 1980s chances are you tried this game and chances are you really enjoyed it it offered a unique gameplay experience with simultaneous two-player action if for whatever reason you haven't tried this game give it a shot you'll be glad you did let me give a big shout out the slopes game room for providing some voiceover work on this video be sure to check out Daniels excellent channel in the link below if you haven't done so already you can always support me on patreon at the link below and also make sure to like share and subscribe to my content that is if you enjoyed it thank you so much for watching

Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 56,118

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, Williams, electronics, Chicago, blues Brothers, Road Runner, medieval, fantasy, ostrich, stork, Knight, Egg, pinball, TMT amusements, TNT amusements

Id: CsSA1sK2oNc

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020