Killer List of Videogames Logo  
Home | News | Message Boards | Library | Events | Bookstore | Search | Contribute | VAPS / Census | About Us

4,440 machines: 0-9   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M  N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z  

Manufacturers | Top 100 Videogames | Visit The International Arcade Museum for 13297 coin-operated listings.

Joust

Joust - Japanese Title

Joust - marquee

Manufacturer: Williams
Year: 1982
Class: Wide Release
Genre: Platform
Type: Videogame

Monitor:

  • Orientation: Horizontal
  • Type: Raster: Standard Resolution
  • CRT: Color
  • 19-inch Wells-Gardner
Conversion Class: Williams
Number of Simultaneous Players: 2
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Joint
Control Panel Layout: Multiple Player
Controls:
  • Joystick: 2-way (left, right)
  • Buttons: 1 [Flap]

Sound: Amplified Mono (one channel)

Joust


Click here to contribute another image.


Joust Bezel Image
Joust Control Panel Image
Joust Instruction Card Image
Joust Side Art Image


Joust Description

You are a knight flying on an ostrich, battling buzzard-mounted enemies. To fly, you repeatedly hit the flap button. To topple the Buzzard-Riders "the highest lance wins." Two-player head-to-head play is excellent.

Know anything more about this game?
Click here to contribute a description or other text information.
Thanks!

Cabinet Information

Early production Joust cabinets came with optical joysticks instead of leaf joysticks and thus had a larger joystick opening in the control panel. The leaf joysticks were substituted later as a cost-saving measure.

Cheats, Tricks and Bugs

Bug: The most famous bug is known as the "Pterodactyl bug". First, cause one of the red riders to get caught by the lava hands on either side of the screen. Then, position yourself so that you can kill the pterodactyls as they come in from either side of the screen. This trick only works on certain ROM revisions of the game, though.

Conversion

These cabinets can also play Robotron (and vice-versa) with a swap of the program ROMs, the sound ROM, and minor wiring harness modifications (for the extra joystick inputs required by Robotron). The control panel joystick openings will have to be bored out to accept the 8-way sticks of Robotron if the cabinet has the two-way leaf joysticks. Joust control panels with Opto-joysticks have larger openings and will readily accept 8-way joysticks.

Game Introduction

Each player controls a different knight and each of them rides a different mount. The first player is a yellow knight who rides on a flying ostrich. The second player is a light blue knight who rides on a giant stork.

There are three different enemy knights who all ride on giant buzzards and each of them are colored differently. The enemy knights are red Bounders, silver Hunters and dark blue Shadow Lords. The other enemies include the "unbeatable" pterodactyl and The Lava Troll, a giant hand that reaches out and grabs from one of the two lava pools at the bottom of the screen.

Game Play

In each wave throughout the game, you must defeat every enemy knight in a joust. Everytime you defeat an enemy knight in a joust by ramming him atop his head, he will turn into an egg. You must then capture the egg before it hatches, otherwise, the egg will hatch and the knight will become the next more-difficult character. In other words, a Bounder will become a Hunter, a Hunter will become a Shadow Lord, a Shadow Lord will become a Bounder and so on. After the egg hatches, a new mount will fly out to pick up the newly-hatched enemy knight. You can also collect an enemy knight after he has hatched before he mounts his buzzard.

Sometimes the eggs will fall into the lava pits at the bottom of the screen in later waves. During the first two waves, there are platforms at the bottom of the screen that will allow you to walk over the lava pits, but in later waves, the platforms will be burned away. Also, in later waves, flames will start to burn in the lava pits.

Sometimes, a pterodactyl will show up in some of those waves, usually if you take too long. The pterodactyl will sometimes try to fiercely charge right at you. The only way you can kill the pterodactyl is by ramming him in the mouth to desintagrate him.

If you have your feathered mount fly too close to either of the lava pits, The Lava Troll will reach out and grab your mount by the legs and pull you both into his fiery home. If this happens, you must have your mount repeatedly flap really hard to escape from the grip of The Lava Troll. The Lava Troll will also grab the enemy knights on their buzzards and occasionally pull them in with him.

Even in the later waves, platforms will collapse and disintegrate. Occasionally, there is an Egg Wave where you must grab all the enemy eggs before they hatch. As you advance to later waves, the difficulty constantly increases.

Miscellaneous

Play the game on-line (requires Shockwave) at http://www.midway.com/classicGames/joust/joust.html

VAPS Arcade Census

GAMES OWNED, WANTED, or FOR SALE BY MEMBERS OF THE VIDEO ARCADE PRESERVATION SOCIETY

Very Common - There are 285 known instances of Joust owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 248 of them are original dedicated machines, 7 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 30 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

Of the 57,098 video games (3,420 unique) tracked by the Video Game Preservation Society, this game ranks a 92 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on ownership records.

Wanted - Very Popular - There are 28 VAPS members currently looking for Joust. There is one VAPS member looking for a Joust circuit board set.

For Sale - There are 17 VAPS members with Joust machines for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts.

Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operators might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range.

eBay Listings

Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the Joust Videogame machine and items related to it.

Click here to automatically search
eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Williams.

Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).

TODAY'S PICKS FOR:

Joust

1. Joust Cocktail Cabinet and Donor Joust Upright Arcade

Auction ends in: 9 hours, 12 minutes

 0 bids
 
$500.00
 
2. Vintage Williams Joust upright Arcade video game

Auction ends in: 2 days, 11 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$900.00
 
3. JOUST ARCADE PCB BOARD REPAIR SERVICE WITH WARRANTY

Auction ends in: 2 days, 16 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$125.00
 
4. WILLIAMS POWER SUPPLY, for moon patrol, joust, robotron

Auction ends in: 1 day, 20 hours

 1 bid
 
$9.01
 
5. joust robotron defender williams mpu cpu pcb board 101

Auction ends in: 3 days, 11 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$39.00
 
6. joust robotron defender williams mpu cpu pcb board IK

Auction ends in: 3 days, 11 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$39.00
 
7. WILLIAMS HEADER MARQUEE RAILS joust, robotron, ect

Auction ends in: 1 day, 20 hours

 0 bids
 
$9.01
 
8. joust robotron defender williams mpu cpu pcb board 149

Auction ends in: 3 days, 11 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$39.00
 
9. Arcade w/ Joust, Asteroids, Frogger, Contra, WWF, SFII

Auction ends in: 3 days, 18 hours

 BuyItNow:
 
$1,995.00
 
10. JOUST WIRE HARNESS

Auction ends in: 5 days, 22 hours

 0 bids
 
$0.99
 
Additional Results Available
Click Here To Browse This Category on eBay!
(exits this site)
Powered by Ace.com

Legacy

  1. Joust
  2. Joust 2: Survival Of The Fittest

Manuals

  1. Instruction Manual  26 Pages, 3776 KB File.
  2. Instruction Manual  13 Pages, 101 KB File.
  3. Manual Amendment  7 Pages, 781 KB File.
  4. Drawing Set  16 Pages, 1629 KB File.
  5. Parts Catalog  4 Pages, 374 KB File.

Foto-Finder™

  1. The Encyclpedia of Arcade Video Games, Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256): Page: 122; Color photo;
Joust - Cabinet Image

Joust - Cabinet Image


Joust - Title screen image


Joust - Title screen image

Joust - Title screen image


Click here to contribute another image.


Joust - Image





Return to the index | Return to the Main Page

© 1995-2009 by The International Arcade Museum®. Portions (c) 2009 by The International Arcade Museum Library, Inc. All rights reserved.

If you wish to use material from our web sites, please take a look at our Acceptable Use, Copyright, and Trademark Page. Except as described on that page, any use of the information found here may not be copied or reprinted on any medium, either physical or electronic, without the express written permission of The International Arcade Museum.