Grok Joust

An original flying-joust arcade game. Ride a Skyrunner over the lava of the Sky Forge and unhorse the rival riders: Scouts, Raiders and Shadow Lords. Play alone, or with a friend on the same keyboard in two-knight co-op.

How to play

1. Type a name and press Register once if you want your scores on the leaderboard. Without a name you play practice games.
2. Choose 1 Player or 2 Players in Choices, then press Start game (or Enter, or tap the playfield).
3. Each press of Flap beats your mount's wings once. Tap it quickly to climb and slowly to glide. Left and Right steer and turn you round. Fly off one side of the arena and you come back on the other.
4. When you meet a rival, the higher lance wins. Be above them and they're unhorsed. If they're above you, you are. If you're level, you bounce apart.
5. Unhorsed riders leave an egg. Grab it before it hatches, or a tougher rider soon climbs out and takes flight. Catching an egg in mid-air is worth extra, and the rare golden egg is worth 2000 more.

Dangers

• The lava fills the gaps at the bottom. Fall in and you lose a life. From wave 7 the side bridges melt away.
• From wave 3 the Magma Claw reaches up for anyone who skims low over the lava. Press Flap quickly 5 times to break free (+200). Rivals get grabbed too.
• The Void Hawk hunts slow knights: from wave 5 after 30 seconds, and from wave 3 if a wave drags on. Touching it is deadly unless you meet it head-on, facing it at the same height, with your lance straight into its beak (+1000).

Waves and extras

• The early waves are gentle: three slow Scouts who mostly fly low, then a few more. Raiders come in from wave 3 and Shadow Lords from wave 5. Riders fly a little faster and smarter each wave, and eggs hatch sooner.
• Survival waves (2, 7, 12, ...) pay 3000 if no one is unhorsed. Egg waves (4, 9, ...) start with eggs scattered round the arena, and you get 250 for each. In co-op, Team waves (5, 10, ...) pay 3000 if neither knight falls.
• You get an extra life every 20000 points. Each knight has 3 lives, and in co-op the game goes on until both are out. Knights bounce off each other harmlessly.
• Egg timers (on by default in Choices) draw a ring round each egg that shrinks as it gets close to hatching.

Fair scores

When you play under a registered name, the server picks the random seed for your game and the page records only your inputs and when (both knights in co-op). When the game ends the server replays that record on its own copy (whole-number maths, so both give exactly the same result) and posts the score it gets. A score can't be typed in or edited, and each game can be posted once. Co-op scores are posted under the registered name and marked co-op.

Autosave

If you close or reload the page in the middle of a game, it comes back paused exactly where you left it. There is no undo.

Leaderboards and chat

The High scores tab shows each player's best verified score and wave, and Overall shows the site-wide totals. Grok Chat pops up from the corner. Use Share on X at the top to tell your friends.

All names, art and sounds are original, drawn and synthesized in code for this game.

Play at https://rtwl.fun/games/grokjoust/

Made by Lawless Alien, built at the desk by Lawless and Grok. Watch Real Time With @LawlessAlien on YouTube.