JOUST3

Local LAN jousting in any web browser. No install. No accounts. Free.

Joust3 is a local-only videogame. Every participant has to be on the same WiFi/LAN. There is no matchmaking, no remote play, no servers running game state — gameplay flows locally thanks to WebRTC.

How to play

Joust opponents from above, knocking enemy riders loose while protecting your own mount. Even a dismounted rider can claim a riderless bird by landing on it from above.

You earn points for dismounting enemy riders, and again for slaughtering the dismounted riders — but mounted players do not kill player-riders on contact. Player-riders can be rescued and hauled up to Heaven.

Beware: every rescued rider you pick up shares control of your bird until delivered to Heaven. In an adversarial game you might happily dismount a rival — but you would absolutely not want to scoop them up afterwards, lest that vile scum wrestle for control of your mount in mid-air!

Multiplayer continues until the last player runs out of lives. Players who are out of lives become ghosts; a nearby mounted player can lift ghosts up to Heaven for a fresh respawn. No one is truly out-of-the-game until the last player loses their last life.

Fun fact: The atmosphere near Heaven is thin. That's just science!

Controls

Touch (phone / tablet): Tap-zones for left, right, flap. Portrait (on phone) splits into 6 zones for one-thumb play; landscape or tablet uses 3 tap-zones for 2-thumb play.
Keyboard: Two players can share any keyboard.
Player: W A S D with Z or C to flap. S doesn't do anything except make your bird flash white to help identify it.
Player: arrow keys with Space / Return / . / / to flap. Down arrow flashes your bird white.

Join-game Lobby

Each player taps flap to secure a game slot (first tapper secures role of host). Then all players must simultaneously hold flap to advance their join-meter to 100% and launch the game.

Get a game going in 30 seconds

Make sure every player is on the same WiFi network.
Players head directly to joust3.com/play or use cameraphone to follow QR Code of first person to display the web page. There is no special room code... if you are on the same LAN, you are in the same join-game lobby.
Players tap flap briefly to secure a color. You get what you get and you don't get upset.
All players hold flap at same time to launch a multiplayer game. Even the host must do this too.

Joust3 is an experiment in how far modern browsers can push twitch multiplayer. There's no round-trip to a distant game server — one player's device runs the authoritative simulation, every client also runs a local prediction so input feels responsive.

Optimal Joust3 Experience

Joust3 is a WebRTC experiment based on Joustine, the original. Joustine was created natively for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Mac. Joustine is tuned specifically for Apple TV hosting. It even supports Siri Remote as a perfect-for-Joust controller.

Get Joustine on the Apple App Store

"But I can't afford none of dem fancy-pants game controllers, mister!"

Does your family own an iPhone? Siri Remote + iPhone = 2 players.

Does your family own an iPad? Siri Remote + iPhone + iPad = 3 players.

Does your family anything else with a web browser? Some crappy old Android tablet or phone? A PC running Windows? That's a fourth controller!

Whatever garbage you got kicking around, if it can join your LAN, it can be a LEFT RITE FLAP controller for Joustine.

Get Joustine on the Apple App Store

Just like Joust3, Joustine is free to play... 2 player. If you want to play 3 player, 4 player, 7 player, nay even 12 player Joust on your Apple TV, then you will need to pay very little money.

How much do you think Joustine Unlock will cost? Double that. Then triple it! Then multiply it by zero. Then add $3.