Joust (video game)

Joust is a 1982 action game developed and published by Williams Electronics for arcades. While not the first two-player cooperative video game, Joust's success and polished implementation popularized the concept. Players assume the role of knights armed with lances and mounted on large birds (an ostrich for Player 1 and a stork for Player 2), who must defeat enemy knights riding buzzards. The characters fly around a single screen filled with floating platforms.

Using the computer hardware from the company's earlier arcade game, Defender, John Newcomer led the development team: Bill Pfutzenreuter, Janice Woldenberg-Miller (née Hendricks), Python Anghelo, Tim Murphy, and John Kotlarik. Newcomer aimed to create a flying game, with cooperative two-player gameplay, while avoiding the overdone space theme. After deciding to use birds as characters, he forwent the standard eight-direction joystick control scheme and devised collisions as the means of combat.

The game was well-received by players and critics, and the mechanics influenced other games. It was followed by a more complex and less popular arcade sequel in 1986: Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest. Joust was ported to numerous home systems and included in several multiplatform retro game anthologies.