MAME ROW #42 - Joust

obsidianspider

This is the MAME Random Of the Week #42

The three random numbers for this week are: 2104, 831, 1410

Click here to vote! Which game do you choose for MAME ROW #42?

The result of the poll is posted on Wednesday, so we have Monday and Tuesday for experimentation.

2104
Game Name: Water Ski
Company: Taito Corporation
Year: 1983
ROM file name: waterski.zip

831
Game Name: Joust (White/Green label)
Company: Williams
Year: 1982
ROM file name: joust.zip

1410
Game Name: Power Spikes (World)
Company: Video System Co.
Year: 1991
ROM file name: pspikes.zip

What is the MAME ROW?

MAME ROW stands for MAME Random Of the Week. We randomly select an arcade game from the 0.78 MAME Reference Set to play on the week. The idea is to play games we've never played before, interact with other forum members, post hi-scores, share game strategies, fun facts, and (the most important) HAVE FUN!

Notes:

We usually post hi-scores screenshots after playing with only one credit. If you used more than one credit, please mention it on your post.
There's no need to use RetroPie to join the MAME ROW! You can play it on any platform you want.

Every Monday we create a topic at the "General Discussion and Gaming > MAME Random Of the Week" forum section with the 3 random games to be voted. And on Wednesday we check the result.

These "rules" are constantly being improved!

Previous Rounds

meleu

Let's vote for Joust!
Let's ask for Joust overlays!
Let's play Joust!
Let's post our best scores!
:)

A Former User

Yeah I'm gonna go with Joust for this one. Actually, this is my first time participating in MAME ROW.

mediamogul

Holy schnikes! Joust is up? I'm in like Flint.

caver01

Always the lurker, it will be hard for me NOT to participate in Joust.

mediamogul

@caver01

Been getting in any practice against the Lich King?

caver01

So, does anyone know if joust.zip has the "pterodactyl bug"? Maybe that was the Solid Red Label? In any case, this issue is one reason we have a few clones of this game. 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. Honor system, of course!

caver01

@mediamogul said in MAME ROW #42:

@caver01

Been getting in any practice against the Lich King?

Hah! It sounds so cheesy--I really hope some of the stuff in RPO translates OK in the film.

mediamogul

@caver01

If anyone can pull it off it's Spielberg. The man had me crying for an alien that looked like a bean bag chair.

obsidianspider

@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?

mediamogul

@obsidianspider

The way may father explained it is when a lava troll loves a hunter very much...

obsidianspider

For anyone else attempting to test Joust (I've never played it before), if you get stuck at "Factory Settings Restored" do a "Reset" (Select+B) and you should be good going forward. It looks like MAME has to set some default value the first time you play it.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider

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

caver01

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #42:

@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. :-)