MAME ROW #42 - Joust

mediamogul

Great note. That's the case with many Midway games of the time.

caver01

@caver01 said in MAME ROW #42:

I think we need to say right off the bat that waiting on the platform for the dino bird while a Hunter is captured by a lava troll is not allowed.

Is it bad that I have no clue what you're talking about?

Ha ha ha! Buzzard Bait!

Here's the deal: Back when Joust was taking everyone's quarters, I remember watching a guy play it at a bowling alley (parents were bowling, I was just the "kid" tagging along). Anyway, this dude was just standing his mount on the middle elevated platform while a lava troll was holding a Hunter. The lava trolls only show their hands, and when you fly too close to the lava, they reach up and grab your bird! Anyway, a Hunter (gray buzzard mount) was insnared by a troll, flapping and flapping to escape. It would get away for a moment, then drift off the screen to the other side only to get grabbed again, and so on and so on. This puts the Hunter into an equilibrium. They can hover, stuck in the troll's grip, forever.

Now, normally, you would fly your mount down there and kill the Hunter, being careful of the troll's reach yourself. The egg falls into the lava, and the level is complete. However, you can also choose to just stand on a platform. After a few moments, a pterodactyl will appear. These are difficult to kill. But, if you are standing in just the right place when it appears, it will fly directly into your lance. This will repeat, over and over and over. So, at 1,000 points per kill, it doesn't take too many pterodactyls to get an extra mount, (usually 20,000 points, so 20 kills) and another and another. Meanwhile, the Hunter is still stuck near the lava.

So, as a little kid wanting to play Joust, I walked up to the guy and asked what was going on. He said he was trying to get the all-time high score on this machine. He explained the details to me, only briefly getting interrupted to kill another pterodactyl every 30 seconds or so. He recognized that this particular unit (based on the label and cabinet art) had a version of the game that had not been "fixed". Apparently, this was discovered by programmers and a new version of the game was released that either introduced a change to the Hunter's behavior or, more likely, changed how the pterodactyl spawns. In any case, on certain clones of Joust, it is not possible to rack up points this way.

Needless to say, I did not get to play Joust that day, but I learned an interesting "cheat" that can save your game if you are only a couple thousand away from an extra mount.

I was proposing that we agree not to leverage this technique.

lilbud

@caver01 Was this version ever archived as a ROM?

mediamogul

@lilbud

Taken from:
https://www.arcade-history.com/?page=detail&id=1228

the Green version fixes a well known bug that allowed you to endlessly kill Pterodactyls on certain levels, thus achieving incredible scores.

caver01

@mediamogul said in MAME ROW #42:

@lilbud

Taken from:
https://www.arcade-history.com/?page=detail&id=1228

the Green version fixes a well known bug that allowed you to endlessly kill Pterodactyls on certain levels, thus achieving incredible scores.

Ok, so my memory was correct. It is the Solid Red Label that has the "bug". This would be the joustr.zip clone. Looks like we are safe with the parent ROM which comes out as the white/green label version.

AndersHP

This game is just... Very original! I don't know what the h*ll is going on :-)

caver01

@AndersHP There is a nice strategy document from @mediamogul 's link above. Otherwise, you can read the instructions on-screen during the demo.

Joust has long been a favorite of mine. That doesn't mean I am very good at it though!

meleu

It seems that Baloon Fight (NES) was inspired in Joust. :-)

UDb23

Can you imagine what's available here ?
;-)

I'm sure nobody really wanted it ... apart from our Script Grandmaster @meleu :-))

meleu

@udb23 thanks man! Really neat!

lilbud

@udb23 said in MAME ROW #42:

Script Grandmaster @meleu

0_1499816767551_15dff6ab-935c-4f2e-bd1e-30edec6311d4-image.png

obsidianspider

@udb23 said in MAME ROW #42:

Can you imagine what's available here ?
;-)

I'm sure nobody really wanted it ... apart from our Script Grandmaster @meleu :-))

It's almost like you guys think it's going to win this week. 😉

UDb23

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #42:

It's almost like you guys think it's going to win this week.

How do you come up with that idea ?
:-)

meleu

@obsidianspider I'm wondering what will be the score of a guy who have the Joust character as his avatar.

obsidianspider

This week's winner is Water Ski! Joust

0_1499858699653_Screen Shot 2017-07-12 at 7.13.56 AM.png

meleu

~~Donald Trump?~~

@obsidianspider today is NOT April first!!!

obsidianspider

@meleu Glad to see someone is actually reading these posts ;)

AndersHP

Am I the only one who gets 4 credits to start with here?
I don't know if it makes any difference though, it seems there's no continues allowed, just thought it was weird. Playing on MAME2003.

obsidianspider

@andershp I just did some testing by "putting in a lot of coins" and then I exited out of the game (Start + Select). When I went back in those credits were still there. I guess that's just how this game is. Something is being stored by MAME regarding your credits.

obsidianspider

15,250 to get things started. I have to burn off those credits from testing what @AndersHP reported. Sure, that's a good excuse…