Hi, everyone! I had a very, very good ten days of Joust, and want to share some of my findings.

I have discovered that (no shade intended at all) the TAS notes/other online resources weren't just incorrect about Wave 39 being the end of the game's difficulty increase/gameplay evolution (as NESCardinality found in 2023, which led to the new main Wave 49 category). Resources also stated that at Wave 90, the game rebirths back to Wave 1, effectively resetting the game from the beginning. Through my own testing and eventual single-segment runs, I have proved this wrong as well - the game does not rebirth at Wave 90; it continues indefinitely with all Shadow Lords, even through the 100s (listed as "A1" and beyond).

Now that I have managed to unlock the ability to last surprisingly deep into the game (my current progress PB is Wave 91, which I have been fortunate enough to achieve twice so far), it got me thinking about the potential for a new category past Wave 49. If the resources had been correct about Wave 90 being the "end" of the game, it would've been an amazing excuse for a long category, but with that nixed, a different possibility actually revealed itself to me along the way.

I've been lucky enough to reach 1 million points several times in NES Joust. However, achieving that milestone comes at an immense cost for continuing in the game...once you hit 1mil and roll over the score, the game no longer gives you lives ever again, which makes it effectively impossible to continue fighting Shadow Lords for more than a few extra waves.

For this reason, I think 1 million points would make sense as a new category...which, I understand and respect that SRC has moved away from speedrunning point scores in general, BUT in this case - the tradeoff of attaining 1mil points actually makes it feel like the soft "ending" of the game to me! Effectively, it's NES Joust's version of a "kill screen." It's not a softlock or a crash, but a bug/feature (I don't know which myself) which pretty much pulls the ripcord on the player's run.

I would understand if few people feel inclined to try their own hand at grinding for 1mil points, but I also hope that my breakthroughs of the past ten days have shown that it is very possible to at least beat Wave 49 with relative consistency, with the right strategies, focus, and patience. Ceiling bounces have been absolutely essential, as well as rhythmically flapping right at the ceiling anytime even a single Shadow Lord is present. With this strategy, Shadow Lords are now my favorite enemies to battle, because they often love to simply fly directly into my lower half and die!

I would love to see more people complete runs for Wave 39 and beyond, and please feel free to ask anything in this thread if you wish, as well as post thoughts about my offered "1 Million Points Killscreen" category. I'll post a link here, showing my fastest run to 1,000,000 points.

Cheers, all! And massive thanks to JadePerardua for all the support, and to NESCardinality for the initial inspiration in 2017, as well as verifying my mountain of runs submitted throughout the course of a WILD week.

The 50K and 100K points categories were the only 2 on this board when it was created. Their totals are essentially arbitrary, and while I would never create them today, their continued popularity and the use of 50K in Prolifics grant them longevity. I think 1 million makes a lot more sense as a category; achieving a score rollover fits well here as a difficult but attainable goal, as is the case with so many NES games where it's possible to reach the highest score the game can display. While I still consider beating Wave 49 to be the closest thing to "beating" this game due to infinite repetition afterwards, I think 1 million points is a significant enough milestone to warrant its own category, even if only one person achieves it in the next decade. The board now has 5 categories.

Thank you so much!! I may edit the 1mil video slightly and submit a different one; I deeply appreciate this.