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I think these are all great ideas and inclusions. I will create those as non-season teams, to allow them to still be present. Ill keep the season mode with the current 10 teams.

I like the flags in the intro. I think it makes perfect sense for the theme.

I've had this happen while demoing a cpu vs cpu a match in NHL95. The kicker was that if the player had scored, it would have resulted in a tie game [and should trigger overtime] Instead, the player went with the lamest of ducks in a backhander from the hash marks, and that was the game. Would have been interesting to see a tying goal, although I have a feeling it would not in fact have triggered an extra frame. The weirdest part was that it didn't even let me look at the game stats afterwards. After the penalty shot was over, it just kicked straight out to the main menu.

Wait, did somebody say 97? Why yes. You read that correctly. Unfortunately I must admit that this was not a very fun project. I never really liked '97 as it just seemed like a lazy copy/paste job of '96, to the point where they didn't even change the year on the playoff bracket, [seriously, go check] and with uglier menu graphics. So unlike '92 to '96, there was no sense of discovery or even an interesting art direction that would allow me to flex my chops. But, the original plan from the start was to make an IIHF version of all of the Genesis NHL games, and by golly I wasn't going to quit now. I will however be skipping the retro review and just post the screen shots. I went with flags over goalie photos mainly to include more teams and make it more international versus player focused. Kept debating if I should change that, let me know what you think eh? soooo much tile renumbering. Finding which palette that Skoda ad used, and making use of a secondary unused one in order to make it green, was a pretty cool find. Finding out that there was a completely unused second palette [with the blue shades being changed to purple!?] was a weird but fortuitous find that conveniently allowed me to make a properly coloured logo and trophy combination. Liked how that part turned out. I was proud of myself for being able to implement all four 16 colour palettes available to me with that congrats screen. In conclusion, I will reference another anticlimactic ending screen... Oh yeah, forgot to note that, like '96, this engine still doesn't support the main menu option in NOSE. So the default match up does not reflect the Finals with Canada vs Sweden. As well as not being able to set the default game options. Add to that the wonky team rankings and season/playoff simmed game performances. [hence Estonia winning the Championship ?] At least exhibition games are fine. IIHF 97.bin

Despite trying to make sure that I was finished with a ROM before posting it, I've come across another that I wasn't quite happy with and made an adjustment to the IIHF 96 presentation. So here's an update. IIHF 96 1.1.bin What is in this update? Just instead of this... ...we get this. The upside is that teams are not only easier to navigate in NOSE, the timeout and shootout/penalty shot screens have something a bit better than "TIMEOUT TEAM" or Shootout TEAM vs TEAM. Came to this conclusion after trying something different in 97 and finding I was unable to use tile or palette editing to avoid making a doubled name bar. Figured that having the three letter ISO code in there was the lesser evil considering all instances.

If you had to include defunct teams, MK Lightning and Edinburgh Capitals would make sense (more recently defunct, with MK probably moving back up soon, and Edinburgh Racers still an entity who wanted the EIHL slot), as I could come up with reasonable rosters without too many retired or duplicated players. 3 of those 4 would be a challenge to roster, and the stingrays were gutted by teams buying up the roster (most notably Coventry) so a fair few clones might be needed. Swindon Wildcats might be worth including... Or, a Team GB, as all but a handful of the roster play in the EIHL. OR, even more random, 2 all star EIHL teams - one current, one "all time greats".

Perfect. Makes it alot easier. Ill put blank place holders for the remaining teams. Ill put together the 2 conferences (Erhardt in one and the Gardiner/Patton in the other. Create the 3 divisions, but 1 division will simply be a placeholder division. Layout below Western Conference Erhardt Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham, EMPTY, EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY Eastern Confrence Gardiner Dundee, Fife, Glasgow, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY Patton Coventry, Manchester and Guildford, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY, EMPTY

If you need an extra team, add Milton Keynes Lightning, as they are likely to join the EIHL in the near future. Leeds Chiefs might also join in due course. The other Scottish and Irish teams are awful by comparison (essentially part-timers) and it'd be a bit of a farce having any of them in a final against an EIHL team. The last time I recall a friendly between an EIHL team and another UK team taking place, it was a bloodbath. I will continue working on the '94 version of the game but feel free to continue to use this thread for the '95 discussion, although I will not have much to add as I do not play '95 all that often.

3 main screens - one of the awful league logo, one of the Giants getting the most recent league trophy, one of a well known player (like Bowns, Ginn, Haddad, Owen, Martin, Herr, Connolly, Fournier- any stats leader). Divisions - this was a bugbear for me. Used to have 3. Erhardt (Cardiff, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham - easily strongest), Gardiner (Dundee, Fife, Glasgow - scots competition), and Patton (Coventry, Manchester and Guildford). This was dropped in 2019-2020 for a straight 10 team league. I was thinking of having 3 small conferences with blank placeholder teams. You could split this into a North\South geographically, or East\West if 2 works better). Could easily pad to a full four with lower division teams... Going for just the 10 EIHL teams makes most sense though as the quality gulf to lower divisions is vast. 6 games v each team gives a 54 game regular season. Names would be better for banners as we have some awful logos. Player photos would be nice - should be available somewhere!

So, to get this going right away. I've came up with a few requests from across the pond to you gents @LaTormenta@MonkeyHead@EagleXIII and any others. 3 Main screens -- logo of each league? player? Historic? Division Breakdown - EIHL for the western conference (since there is only 12 teams, can put 1 dummy team per division) and the Eastern conference I can put the Irish and Scottish leagues to balance it out. Than only have the EIHL play against themselves and the same for the other conference. Then the winner of the EIHL with play for the championship against the winner from Scott/Irish. Banners - team names or logo? Player cards - logo or player image? This is the start. I already have the team logos and jersey colors.