THE MAKING OF JOUST 2 SURVIVAL of the FITTEST

JOUST WAS A TRUE ORIGINAL AND A BONA FIDE CLASSIC OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARCADE VIDEOGAMES, BUT THE SEQUEL HAD ITS WINGS CLIPPED BEFORE IT EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO SPREAD THEM. DESIGNER JOHN NEWCOMER AND PROGRAMMERS KRISTINA DONOFRIO AND WARREN DAVIS SPIT FEATHERS

- PAUL DRURY

It’s the summer of 1982 and John Newcomer, designer of Joust, is watching his game collecting quarters in arcades across America. It’s a supremely satisfying moment, given how many industry insiders doubted this strange game, which replaced the ubiquitous fire button with one marked ‘flap’, would ever be a hit. Yet even then, he was mulling over what could have been.

“I’d have liked to add more variety in terms of levels and ledge layouts,” John explains. “I wish I’d had more memory to put in more characters. I would’ve messed about with the layouts and taken some risks. I wish I’d made it, not harder, but more challenging. There’s a difference in making something harder just to force someone off the machine and making it more of a puzzle, something to challenge you and keep you working at [the game]. I mean, you really weren’t supposed to be able to beat the pterodactyl that easily!”

Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes. After enjoying several very fruitful years at Williams at the start of the Eighties, as its first in-house game designer, a new role in the industry, John had left when the arcade market tanked in the middle of the decade. He joined rivals Gottlieb for a short period, during its time trading as Mylstar, before being tempted back to Williams in February 1986. And almost the first thing he was asked to do was revisit his most successful game.