Buzzard Bait
-
Buzzard Bait
(1983 on
PC Booter,
Apple II)
Description
After a successful Pitfall clone, Tom Mix published a Joust clone for the CoCo and Dragon. Just as in the original Joust, you are a knight, riding an ostrich in a dungeon tournament(!). The goal is to force the ostrich to fly onto the platform and to land on your opponents. The opponent ostriches turn into eggs when landed upon, for you to collect. When all opponents are eliminated, you go on to the next level. If you wait too long, a dangerous pterodactyl will enter the screen to chase you down. Buzzard Bait is mostly feature-complete compared to its role model, including lava trolls. To cope with the limited colour repertoire of the Motorola 6847 chip, you can choose between three colour schemes for the game, ranging from the system green and "buff" to a pure black and white mode.
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Screenshots
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Credits (TRS-80 CoCo version)
Reviews
Players
Average score: 4.3 out of 5 (based on 2 ratings with 1 reviews)
Joust, almost a perfect copy- have dongle, will flap
The Good
Its joust, with the Dragon's colour set, of course. Joust is a favourite of mine, although the only official copy I own is the Atari 800 version, its one of those games that every machine has a decent version of somewhere. The key to any version of Joust is to get the collision detection and control right, and in this respect the Dragon version, identical to the Tandy Co-Co, is a real winner. The green colour set actually jars less than you would think- a rare example where the machines colour limitations (space is not green!) are not exposed. Sound wise its more than decent, in that it matches up nicely with other machine's versions, although it has to be said that its not a game where the sound is that important. The Dragon version does not have a skill setting, but pitches it about right, and of course is an absolute joy in two player mode, where two players take to the skies simultaneously, and all the expected screens are there. You can kill the pterodactyl with practice, and it feels great.
The Bad
I can honestly say there is nothing I would have wanted more, beyond a reduction in loading time, which is excessive.
The Bottom Line
Joust in the Dragon colour set.
Dragon 32/64 · by drmarkb (105) · 2016
Trivia
Aftermath
In a curious strike of fate, the people who wrote Buzzard Bait were contracted by Atari a few years later to do the official port of Joust to the Atari ST.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Игги Друге.
Additional contributors: formercontrib, Patrick Bregger.
Game added September 26, 2006. Last modified February 22, 2023.