How to play
Two knights face each other across a tilt rail in a castle courtyard. Each pass, both horses charge from their own end of the lists. You hold one button, and you press it once: at the instant your lance tip reaches your rival’s shield. The Red Knight rides in front of the rail, the Blue Knight rides on the far side. First to 10 points wins the match; you can choose 5 or 15 on the menu.
- Red Knight strikes with Space (or any of W A S D).
- Blue Knight strikes with Enter (or any arrow key).
- Gamepads work too: any face button strikes. The first pad is Red, the second Blue.
- On a phone, hold it sideways. Each player owns one half of the screen: tap it to strike.
- Playing alone? Choose vs Bot and pick Easy, Normal or Hard.
- P or Esc pauses. The game also pauses by itself when you switch tabs.
Only your first press in a pass counts. Holding the button down from the countdown does nothing, and a second press after the first changes nothing.
Scoring
The game measures how far your press was from the moment of impact:
- Helmet (2 points): within 4 ticks of impact, about 60 milliseconds either way. Your lance strikes the helmet and shatters.
- Shield (1 point): within 11 ticks, under 180 milliseconds. A glancing blow on the shield.
- Miss (0 points): later than that, earlier than that, or no press at all.
A knight who takes a helmet strike while missing completely is unhorsed and flies into the sand. That is worth 1 extra point, so a clean unhorsing scores 3. Both knights can score in the same pass: two helmet strikes give 2 points each.
The match ends as soon as a knight reaches the target after a pass. If both reach it in the same pass, the one with more points wins; if they are level, you ride one more pass. A match never goes beyond 40 passes.
Reading the timing
Every pass is a little different. Each horse draws a slightly different speed, up to 18% faster or slower than usual, and both horses take about half a second to reach full gallop. So you cannot count seconds from the drum; you have to watch the lances. A coloured ring tightens around your rival’s shield as your lance tip closes in, and it is gone when you press. The lance tip meeting the shield is the moment.
Pressing early lowers your lance too soon and the tip is past the shield before the horses meet. Pressing late is just as bad. The on-screen text tells you which happened, so you can adjust on the next pass.
Strategy
- Watch your own lance tip, not the horses. The horses’ speeds differ each pass, so the gap closes at a different rate. The tip touching the shield is the only reliable cue.
- A shield strike beats a miss. If you are unsure, press when the tip is close rather than waiting for perfection. A miss against a helmet strike costs you a fall and 3 points.
- Against the Easy bot, aim for helmets: it misses about a third of its passes, and each of those is a chance to unhorse it.
- Against the Hard bot, it never misses, so you cannot unhorse it. Matches are won on helmet strikes, so practise the tight window with the 5-point target first.
- Sound helps. The drum marks the charge and the shield hit has its own thud; with sound on, your timing settles faster.
If you enjoy Joust Duel, try Lumen & Umbra or Magnet Pair next.
