Joust (Atari 2600) (feat. Jordan) - Let's Play 1001 Games - Episode 853
9💥 Fan of the channel? Help support the series ► https://www.patreon.com/GamingJay1001\n💥 Follow me on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/GamingJay1001\n💥 Check out the website ► http://letsplay1001.com/\n💥 Check out the book ► http://www.amazon.com/1001-Video-Games-Must-Before/dp/0789320908\n\nI'm Gaming Jay: Youtube gamer, let's player, fan of retro games, and determined optimist... Join me in this series while I try out EACH of the video games in the book 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE, before I die. The game review for each game will focus on the question of whether you MUST play this game before you die. But to be honest, the game review parts are just for fun, and are not meant to be definitive, in depth reviews; this series is more about the YouTube gamer journey itself. From Mario games to the Halo series, from arcade games to Commodore 64, PC games to the NES and Sega Genesis, Playstation to the Xbox, let's play those classic retro games that we grew up with, have fond memories of, or heard of but never got a chance to try! And with that said, the game review for today is...
Joust
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust_(video_game)
Joust is an action game developed by Williams Electronics and released in arcades in 1982. 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, a stork for Player 2), who must fly around the screen and defeat enemy knights riding buzzards.
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.
The game was well-received by players and critics, and the mechanics influenced other games. Joust was ported to numerous home systems and was followed by a more complex and less popular arcade sequel in 1986: Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest.
Joust was developed by Williams Electronics, with John Newcomer as the lead designer. The development also included programmer Bill Pfutzenreuter, artists Janice Woldenberg-Miller and Python Anghelo, and audio designers Tim Murphy and John Kotlarik.[6] The game features amplified monaural sound and raster graphics on a 19-inch color CRT monitor.[7] Like other Williams arcade games, Joust was programmed in assembly language.[8] A pack of three AA batteries provide power to save the game's settings and high scores when the machine is unplugged from an electrical outlet.[9][10] Anghelo stenciled the cabinet artwork on a wooden frame,[6][9] and designed artwork for promotional materials.[6] One such flyer features archaic English, which was also incorporated into the game's onscreen instructions and game-over message.[5]
Following the success of the 1981 game Defender, Williams searched for new creative staff.[6][8] John Newcomer, believing video games to be the future of entertainment, left his job as a toy designer to work at Williams, who hired him to create game ideas as support for development staff. After a few days, he generated a list of ideas that included ideas for his top two games, The War of the Worlds and Joust. Technical specifications dictated the selection because his vision of The War of the Worlds was technologically infeasible, whereas Joust could be accomplished with hardware already available at Williams.[6] A development team was formed, which decided to create the game using Defender's hardware.[6][11] Newcomer was also inspired by the 1980s movie Flash Gordon.[12]
Newcomer conceived Joust as a "flying game" with cooperative two-player gameplay; however, he did not wish to emulate the popular space theme of previous successful flying games like Asteroids and Defender. To that end, he made a list of things that could fly: machines, animals, and fictional characters. After evaluating the positive and negative of each idea, Newcomer chose birds for their wide appeal and his familiarity with fantasy and science fiction media featuring birds. To further increase his understanding, Newcomer went to the library to study mythology. He believed that the primary protagonist should ride a majestic bird. The first choice was an eagle, but the lack of graceful land mobility dissuaded him. Instead, he decided that a flying ostrich was more believable than a running eagle. To differentiate between the first and second player characters, the developers picked a stork, believing the proportions were similar to an ostrich while the color difference would avoid confusion among players. Newcomer chose vultures as the main enemies, believing that they would be recognizably evil. Anghelo created concept art of the characters as guidance for further design.[6]