When playing Joust, players assume the role of a knight armed with a lance and riding a flying ostrich (or stork, for Player 2) to engage in combat with other computer-controlled knights riding atop vultures. These adversaries are considered to be wrong.
Players must flap their steeds’ wings to attack the opponent from a higher jousting point and take out both the vulture and the rider of the vulture. After defeating a foe, an egg will fall to one of the lower platforms and land there. The brave knights are responsible for destroying the eggs so that new, more challenging knights do not emerge when they hatch. The Bounder ability is associated with the red knight, the Hunter ability is associated with the white knight, and the Shadow Lord ability is associated with the blue knight. The challenge these hostile knights present is not the only one present in the game. In addition to these challenges, players must battle with collapsing platforms; lava trolls that attempt to drag knights into the inferno, and the terrifying “unbeatable” pterodactyl.
It was considered innovative because it was one of the few games in the arcade that allowed two people to play at once.
