v1.1 - Released 2026-03-22

I’ve been working on a patch that brings the classic NHL Hockey ’92 Mini Logos and Banners back to NHL ’94.

To make things easier for everyone, I also built a browser-based patcher that lets you apply the Mini Logos and/or Banners to any ROM, no batch files, installs, or setup needed.

The web app includes instructions and a quick tutorial.

Feedback, suggestions, or bug reports are all welcome!

Web App Link: https://mhopkinsinc.github.io/MiniLogos/

Features:

• Default 28 team support for Mini Logos + Banners.
• Works with Widescreen Mode ROMs.
• Tested on the NHL '94 Base ROM and Fighting ROM.
• Support for 30/32 team ROMs (You may have to edit your own logos and banners).
• Export and Import functionality for modifying your own Mini Logos + Banners.

Default Mini Logos + Banners:

For the default version, I created a banner set that closely matches the originals, with minor adjustments to fit the text, match the background colors, and accommodate the additional teams introduced in ’94.

DREZZ Styled Mini Logos + Banners:

A huge shout-out to @Drezz for designing some amazing custom Mini Logos & Banners for the 28/30/32 team ROMs.

The 28/32 team versions are included in the Tile Editor section of the app by selecting the "Drezz" style variant.

Known Issues:

1. Any custom ROM that has modified the background on the Team selection screen causes tile corruption.
   For now you will need to disable the "Team Select Banners" until this is resolved.
   
   
    
2. Some custom ROMs also modify the default palette, which may cause color corruption.
   In those cases, you may need to create your own custom Mini Logos and Banners with custom palette for those ROMs.

All builds were tested with the Genesis Plus GX emulator.

If you experience any technical issues, you may want to try running the ROM in that emulator.

If you report a problem, please include:

• The exact emulator version or console you’re using.
• The ROM you were trying to patch.
• The patching features you selected.
• Any custom .aseprite files you used.
   

Technical Notes:

Currently, the new code and tiles are inserted at the end of the ROM.

If this conflicts with your ROM layout or you need the data placed elsewhere, leave a comment. I can likely extend the tool to allow you to specify the starting ROM address for the inserted data/tiles.

I provide this patch (along with several other NHL '94 patches) in my GitHub repository, if you'd like to review the code or apply the patch using a simple batch file with no UI.

-Mark

smozROMv100.zip - Windows (executable)

smozROM.py - Linux, Mac (python 3 source code, depends on other files in the zip above)

To use the program, simply drag-and-drop a ROM file onto smozROM.exe (after unzipping the zip file, of course) or smozROM.py.

You'll be asked what hacks to apply (and forced to use the 2nd-assist bug and plus-minus hacks.. nyah), and then asked to name the new ROM file.

If it doesn't work, try installing these and retrying it:

vc 2008 redist sp1

vc 2010 redist

v1.0 (Sept 2, 2010)

Features:

- Weight bug fix
- 0-15 player ratings
- Bodycheck statistics
- Plus-minus (+/-) statistic *see below for how to extract stat
- Base player weight modification for different years
- Improved Three Stars rating formula
- Edit Lines ratings consistency fixes
- Checksum removal

v1.0.1 (Oct 15, 2018) - smozROM.py updated only

Changes: 

- Update code to work on Linux and Mac

--

It also includes an update for NOSE so that NOSE can read the ROMs with the 0-15 ratings and base weight modification ratings. Read "NOSE Update.html" in the zip package.

Tell me if there are any problems.. program crashes, ROM doesn't feel right, etc.

* How to extract the +/- stat

You can use the default Palette that is embedded in the .ANIM file, or pass in a custom team's palette (also included in the repo for convenience).

https://github.com/abdulahmad/EA-NHL-Tools/tree/main/ANIM-To-BMP

Special thanks to @chaos & @McMarkis on collaborating to figure out the file format. We've been looking at these in an effort to understand the NHL94 animation format better so that chaos can add the fighting sprites to his fighting mod for NHL 94.

Now I'm going to see if I can get this going for NHL93 & 94 sprites.

The name is a play on wboy's "NOSE" (NHL Old-School Editor) editor for the game.

This isn't meant to replace NOSE; it's to do things that NOSE doesn't do.

EARE Version 1.0.0 (May 30 2010)

At v1.0.0, EARE does everything I initially planned for it to do!

Download: EARE100.zip (previous version had 53 downloads)

Current Abilities:

• NEW: Change the ROM name that appears in the title bar of the emulator
  
• Change Team Ratings
  
• Change the Offense/Defense/PP/PK/Home/Away strengths of the teams.
  
• Change the number of teams selectable in the main window.
  
• Set the player pictures if you have switched the teams players are on. This works easily if your ROM uses the original players but on different teams. If you have custom players, see the Help.txt file to get an understanding of how you can make it work with custom players.
  

Future features:

• Weight bug fix
  
• Assist bug fix
  
• Edit intro credits text and Ron Barr text
  
• Organ song re-arranger (put existing songs on different teams)
  
• Edit speed boost multiplier, turning rate, and energy recovery rate
  

Known Issues:

• If you change values in a window but don't hit Apply, you aren't warned to save your changes if you close the ROM or EARE.
  

Please tell me if you have any trouble running it...

And again, the download link:

EARE100.zip

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Road Map:

v1.1.0 - Game bug fixes

- Weight bug fix

- Assist bug fix

- Indication of which bug fixes have already been applied

- Detection of unapplied changes and prompting a save when closing EARE or the ROM

v1.2.0 - Player behaviours

- Speed boost strength

- Stopping and turning rate

- Energy recovery rate

- Goalie movement boundaries

- Goalie play stoppage time limit/disable

Beyond

- Edit intro credits and Ronn Barr commentary

- Reorder teams in startup menu

- Rearrange sound effects (not modify, just rearrange)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Change Log:

v1.0 (May 30 2010)

New Features:

- ROM Name now editable. This is the ROM name that appears in the title bar of the emulator.

- Game's checksum routine is removed when you save.

- Icons added for save and open. Icons by Mark James http://www.famfamfam.com

Bug Fixes:

- Doing Save As without first modifying the ROM produced an empty file.

- Recent Files list did not update after reaching a length of 5 files.

- An opened ROM was closed if you cancelled before opening another ROM.

Development Time:

- 15 hours approx.

- Lost time due to some strange debugging problem

v0.1.3 (Jan 26 2010) - (was downloaded 53 times)

New Features:

- Team Ratings - Now viewable and editable in the Teams window.

- Ability to use EARE to open a ROM using the "Open With" feature of Windows. (EARE now accepts a file path as a command line argument)

- Now remembers the last directory you opened a file from and uses it the next time you use File->Open or File->Save As.

Changes:

- The "Set Player Pictures" window now starts minimized to avoid accidental usage of the feature.

Bug Fixes:

- If you use the File->Close menu option, EARE now clears the file name from the main window title bar.

Development Time: 4h 01m

Old Link: EARE013.zip

v0.1.2 (Dec 10 2009) - (was downloaded 18 times)

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed the bug that caused EARE to crash if a ROM contained any team lines with any number of empty player slots. EARE will show a warning message if it notices this problem. You should fix the problem in NOSE by making sure all lines on all teams have all 7 players specified (G, LD, RD, LW, C, RW, and Extra Attacker).

Old Link: EARE012.zip

v0.1.1 (Jun 28 2009) - (was downloaded 49 times)

Bug Fixes:

- Fixed the bug where goalies without personalized pictures were given generic player pictures instead of generic goalie pictures.

Old link: EARE011.zip

v0.1.0 - (was downloaded 10 times)

New Features:

- New "Set Player Pictures" window that automatically sets the player pictures for all teams. If your ROM uses the original NHL94 players (Roenick, etc) but on different teams, then just hit the button and it does it. If your ROM has new/custom players and pictures, see the EARE "Help.txt" file for information on how to make this feature know how to use your players and pictures.

- New team selector dropdown box on the toolbar (like in NOSE).

- New "Players" window displays the players on each team.

- The Players window also reads the file "PlayerCardsDefault.txt" which lists the names and hex address of the pictures of each player. The window can then display the picture address for the players with pictures. Players without pictures have a value of "0". NOTE: If two players have the same name, EARE can not tell them apart, so will give them both the same picture (for example, Stephane Richer).

- New "Lines" window displays the lines for each team.

v0.0.4

New Features:

- New "Teams" window allows you to change the offense/defense/pp/pk/home/away strengths of the teams.

- "Selectable Teams" window dropdowns now list the team names along with the team numbers.

v0.0.3

Bug Fixes:

- Now properly sets the away team selection limit. Thanks to Vocally Caged for noticing and reporting this bug.

v0.0.2

Bug Fixes:

- Got rid of mingwm10.dll dependency that caused it to not work on most computers. This had the pleasant side effect of reducing the file size by about 25%. Thanks to TubaHero and Vocally Caged for reporting this issue (and there might have been a 3rd person, I forgot!).

v0.0.1 (first version)

New Features:

- Can set the number of teams that are allowed to be selected in the main screen for both Regular Season games and Playoff games. This allows you to hide teams you don't want to see in your custom ROM.

Version 0.3 adds 32 team ROM functionality

This Python app will take image assets supplied, and import them into a Genesis NHL'94 ROM. It can also export the image assets from a Genesis NHL'94 ROM and store them in byte arrays. It is useful for exporting assets from a previous ROM and importing them into a new one.

The app is designed to either update or export the following image data:

• Team Logo and Palette
• Team Rink Logo and Palette (also the Home Jersey Palette)
• Team Away Jersey Palette
• Banner and Palettes

NOTE: The image data is in byte format. It can't be opened in any program other than a text editor.

There are 2 options to use:

Before running, please make sure the team names and rosters are already set in the ROM!!

1. Extract Images
   • Choose a ROM, set the number of active teams, and click the Extract Images button. The app will output a folder with the ROMs name containing image assets for each team (listed by team abbreviation).
2. Import Images
   • The program will use the image asset data located in the import folder (listed by team abbreviation). It will only import the image assets that are present in the folder, and the program will notify you of which teams in the ROM were updated, and which were not. Once done, it will ask you for a location and a name to save the modified ROM.

Workflow:

1 - Create a new ROM and set the rosters and team names using NOSE or similar. 

2 - Find the ROMs that have the image assets you would like to use in your ROM. You can find many ROMs on the forum from this post, or by looking in the league section of the forums - 

3 - Start the app. Load the ROM. Choose the ROM type (30 or 32 Team ROM), choose the number of active teams (ex: if you have only 12 teams in the ROM, choose 12) and click export. A message will pop up once complete. Look in the app's folder to find a folder with the ROMs name. Inside, each team's image assets will be separated in a folder with the respective team abbreviation. Continue exporting other ROMs if needed.

4 - Add the team folders you wish to use to the import folder located in the app's main folder (if there is no import folder, create a new folder with the name "import" (no quotes)). You only need to add the teams that you wish to change. You can also remove the data in the team's folder that you do not wish to update (for instance, if you only want to update the rink logo and palette, leave them in the folder, and delete the other files). 

5 - Load your new ROM into the app. Then, click the Import button. The app will notify you which teams were updated, and which teams were not. Then, it will prompt you to save the modified ROM. Afterwards, check in an emulator to make sure the image assets were transferred over.

Zip file contains a Windows executable. You can get the source code from my GitHub - https://github.com/Chaos81/nhl94-image-updater

Image_Updater_ver_0.3.zip

I have finished my music patch and created an accompanying Excel Music Table Generator that will expedite the process for anyone looking to plug the songs into a ROM.

I don't know if any of this is useful to anyone except me, but please feel free to use it if you want a more modern sound in your game.

The music catalog has mostly stadium jams and a few pep/marching band songs just to accommodate my NCAA project, but also a feel references either to the original NHL 94, other video games (New Vegas and Undertale fans may find a surprise inside), and TV shows in NHL markets.

The patch is compatible with any ROM and only updates the music notes, not the table because the location changes in different ROM sizes.

There are 66 total songs added in, and only a few from the original game remain as the "tone" didn't match on many of the longer/more advanced songs.

The Excel Spreadsheet has an input page you'll type songs in on, and then an output page that will spit out the hex combination for you to paste over your table. I recommend not leaving any song slots as "Random" if you're doing retro ROMs because I don't know how to control what that pool pulls from, and Kanye West or Metallica might throw off any 70s vibe you're going for.

I don't plan on updating this any soon because it was a slog, but if there are bugs please let me know.

Download here.

v1.1 Updates

I tried to live with it, but The Sopranos Theme midi was so bad. It's been replaced with some ABBA, and the spreadsheet had a new offset added for no music per discussion on Discord.

Sean's NHL 94 Music Patch v1.1 Update.zip

(SNES support added in v1.2)

This program takes a full-colour (24-bit) BMP and converts it to a bunch of 16-colour images.

Choose the 16-colour image you like best, then pass it through the program again to prepare the image for importing into Tile Molester.

There is a detailed README.txt in the package, so please read it.

If after reading the README.txt, you have more question, feel free to ask!

Let me know if there are any problems.
If the program crashes, please give me the error message if there is one.

Unzip, drag and drop your image onto Ditherer.exe.

NOTE: I think the problems with disappearing files, and paths and filenames with spaces in them have been solved in v1.1.

NOTE: For some people, the program will create a new folder in your My Documents and put the files there. (I don't know what the folder is called, CoachMac reported the issue but didn't say the name). 

NOTE 2: Do not put the program in a path with spaces in it, or have spaces in the file name. If you get the problem with "File Size: 0" that is probably the cause.

v1.2.0 - Dec 22, 2023

SmozDitherer_v1.2.0.zip

OLD v1.1.0 - Feb 26, 2023 (had 16 downloads)
GenesisImageDitherer_v1.1.0.zip

OLD v1.0.0 - Jul 8, 2012
GenesisImageDitherer_v100.zip

GenesisImageDitherer_v100.zip
--
Starting image:

--

Dithered image (my favourite from the 48 images generated by the program):
(You need to click it to zoom in and see the dithering/pixelation)

--

Image prepared for importing into Tile Molester (which expects it to be darker than it actually will display as):
(You need to click it to zoom in and see the dithering/pixelation)

You can create a CSV file (which can be opened with excel) of the players in a ROM. then you can change the skills of the players and import the players from the CSV back into the ROM.

It works with NHL 94 (and maybe 93?), but as Cam Kneely points out, you can use NOSE to copy rosters from a different game into an NHL 94 ROM, and extract from there.

A couple usage notes:

1: do not change the order of the players

2: do not change the player names, positions, or teams.

You can only change the skills/attributes.

Installation

1: Download and unzip to wherever you want: NHL_Hockey_Roster_Tool.zip

2: Also, this requires the .NET framework. I think version 2.0 will work, but if not, try version 1.1

(if you need to install the framework, can you please tell me which one works so i can update this to be more accurate? thanks)

Source Code

Dennis has provided the source code. Also included is his SRM file editor (which would allow you to fake User Records on an emulator, if you so wished to do...)

NHL_Hockey_Roster_Tool.src.zip

The point of this tool is that while pasting in player card photos and entering corresponding names into NOSE, I would note the offset in Tile Molester and also paste the names into the matching PLAYER NAME field. Then using some fancy formulas, it all gets crunched into the first column, which can be copy/pasted into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file that EARE uses. I've tested this on a couple of ROMs and it seems to do the job quite nicely in complimenting EARE's Player Picture setting function while also helping me keep track of the rosters, while giving me a quick reference to go to a specific player pic in the case when I wanted to edit or swap it out.

As an aside, one interesting thing I encountered was that the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file needed to be edited and saved before I opened EARE. Not sure if it was real or imagined, but it seemed as if for quick indexing, the program would reference the .txt file in the state it was as the program was opened. Anyway, once I kept that in mind, I had no further problems.

A visual reference:

Note the Offset of the player photo as you are importing images.

Paste Player Names into the cells that correspond to the Picture Offset [as opposed to the Card Pointer]
Once all names have been entered, select and copy ALL of Column A and paste it into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file as found in your EARE.exe folder.
[I keep a copy of the original unedited file just in case]

Open EARE, and click Set Player Pictures. Repeat as players may be traded, to redirect to player's new roster spot to the old photo spot.

Of note, I even found this worked for multiple instances of the same player, so in the case of an All-Star team or, in my case, having a player selectable and a non-selectable version of the same team [for playoff alignment purposes] both instances of the same named player would end up referencing the Last reference of player name/photo pointer on the list.

Sorry if this is too redundant, I've been told it's important to skew your instruction to all skill levels. Anyway, hope this is helpful.

NHL94 Cards Hex.ods NHL94 Cards Hex.xls

Newer:

Gens_ReRecording_r352.zip

Old:

Gens11svn341(fixed).zip

Note that this is basically Gens with added hacking features in the Tools menu. You can use it as your main emulator if you want.

Check out TonyH's great hacking tutorial for how to use it for investigating hacks

NHL94_game_stitcher1.4.zip

It's for use when you're playing a game and get disconnected/desynched.

You can use 3 savestates to make one savestate that represents your full real game, so all your stats are preserved.

Most Recent Update:

Version 1.4, November 3, 2011

• Gets correct +/- data
  
• Gets correct Time On Ice data (well, close to correct)
  
• Gets correct Peak Crowd Level
  

The Idea:

The "formula" is this:

stitched_save = save1 + (save3 - save2)

save1: a savestate from when your game desynched.

save2: a savestate from the replayed game that has the

same score as save1 and approximately the same

time left.

save3: the savestate from the end of the replayed game.

stitched_save: a new savestate you can upload to the

website.

So, if you had 10 checks when the game was disconnected, then replayed the game, but had only 5 checks at the point where yiu started playing for real again, and ended up with 25 checks, this program will output a savestate where you have 30 checks (10 + (25-5) = 30). It will also fix up the scoring summary so you get all the right assists, etc.

Instructions/process:

1. Oh no! My game got disconnected when it was 5-4 half-way through the 2nd

period, whatever will I do?

2. MAKE A SAVESTATE when the game desynchs. Take note of the current score,

time remaining, and who had the puck (which coach).

Hit the F7 key to set gens to the next saveslot, so you don't save over this

savestate. Better yet, go and make a copy of the savestate for safekeeping.

3. Replay the game up to the time it got disconnected last time, scoring the

appropriate number of goals.

Don't worry about who scores them -- the stitcher will take care of it! But

you have to have the same score as when the game was disconnected.

4. Make another savestave -- this will be the reference

point for stitching the games together. DON'T SAVE

OVER THE ORIGINAL!

Hit the F7 key to set gens to the next saveslot, so

you don't save over this savestate. Better yet,

go and make a copy of the savestate for safekeeping.

5. Once the time is approximately what it was when the

game disconnected last time, start playing for real

and finish the game! Give the puck to the coach who

had it when the game disconnected.

6. At the end of the game, make yet another savestate.

DON'T SAVE OVER THE OTHER ONES!

7. Put Gamestitcher1.4.exe in the same folder as your

savestates

8. Doubleclick GameStitcher1.4.exe

9. Enter the length of periods you are using, in minutes. For example, 5.

10. Enter the names of the three savestates, one at a time

11. Enter a name for the output file, such as "out.gs0"

12. The games should get stitched together and output.

13. Load the stitched savestate in gens just to verify

that it stitched properly.

14. If all is good, upload to the website!

---

This game was stitched with version 1.4: http://www.blitz94.com/boxscore.asp?gameid=3860

Download:

NHL94_game_stitcher1.4.zip

Old version: NHL94_game_stitcher1.3.zip

If you're still looking for a way to change your palettes you could always use HivePal. Its a small utility that allows you to explore the entire contents of a rom for palettes.

What you want to do is use tile molester to look at the graphics you plan to change and look at the offset to see roughly where in the rom the image is located.

Then open HivePal and try loading the palette of that offset. It's rarely correct, but its always close, you can then click brows rom and it will stay in that area. Look for long connected blocks of colour, those will be your palettes. Click on the first color of the palette and find out its offset. Enter that in the main window and it will load your palette for editing.

If your unsure if you have found the correct palette, you can load the same palette into tile molester from a save state. Select the palette for the image your looking for, and compare it to the palette in HivePal. If they match, you probably have the right one. After that you should be fine!

You can get HivePal here:

http://segaretro.org/HivePal

Also see this thread for more tips: http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/13930-finding-pallettes-new-mod/page__view__findpost__p__112589

http://segaretro.org/HivePal

Edit: Heres a basic usage guide: