Joust

Joust is a 1982 arcade game made by Williams Electronics. Although never officially stated to be an inspiration for Balloon Fight, there are many similarities in gameplay.
== Gameplay ==
The goal of the game is to get as many points as possible by defeating all of the enemies. The players and enemies are knights which ride on large birds. By rapidly pressing the "flap" button, the player can ascend. When characters collide, the lower one will be damaged. The player has limited lives, but enemies will drop as eggs when hit, and if the egg is not broken before it hatches, the enemy will return stronger.
The arena the game takes place in has a central platform floating in a pool of lava. There are also several floating platforms which enemies spawn from. If the player gets too close to the lava, a lava troll will reach out and grab them, attempting to pull them into the lava.
== Release ==
The game was originally designed and distributed as an arcade game. In the years afterward, there were many different ports to home computers and game systems, either standalone or in a compilation of games. One release with a notable connection to Balloon Fight is the NES port of Joust, as it was developed by Satoru Iwata while he was working at HAL Laboratory.