About
Joust is a 1982 arcade action game from Williams Electronics in which players ride flying birds and joust enemy knights across single-screen levels of floating platforms. Ostrich Riders is a free clone of Joust for one to three players, originally developed by Seby with graphics by Suiland and later continued by Dennis Payne. Players ride flying ostriches and must hit opponents from above; defeated opponents leave eggs that have to be collected before a stronger enemy hatches. The latest listed release is version 0.6.5 from 2019.
How it differs from the original
It adds features not in the arcade original, including a combo score multiplier of up to 4x, a random map generator, a third player, custom mods with their own maps, tiles and physics constants, an external level editor, and an arcade mode with fewer options for use in arcade cabinets.
Getting started
The game has fullscreen and key-configuration options in its menu, supports multiple joysticks, and can be paused with the P key. It looks for its data in a system-wide share directory and otherwise falls back to a local data folder; an RPM spec file is included for packaging.
History
Development began with version 0.5.0 in July 2009, which had 8 levels and basic AI, and continued through 0.6.1 later that year. After a gap, Dennis Payne resumed work in 2016 with an SFML update and a third player, releasing 0.6.5 in February 2019.