von Ozbourne

I remember trying to recreate that original High Score splash screen and eventually seeing that the original game had used four different palette combinations. Copped out with a simpler two palette version just to get that orange middle bit. And seeing how, as mentioned, wboy made the top and bottom bars using different palettes to get his colour logo and such. I never really gotten fancy like that with the splash screen, but did try things with the title screen. I figure the knowledge is transferable, just a matter of the different offset. Was trying to think of one and remembered that our NHL ROMs have title screens where I used this to get more skin tones as well as having as many colours as possible for the uniform gradients. This is what last year's cover looked like on palette 1 and 3. In order to get the import to look right, I usually open my current and a previous version of the same game and set the same palettes on both. I use photoshop for my image making and it's nice because I can spend way too much time setting the index colours to the ones I want to use within the SEGA palette. Zegras was fairly easy because I only needed to worry about the square around the face. This was the image I imported to get the uniform and background. Then in the old version I set the colours to the face tones palette and imported this Then it was just a matter of copy pasting these tiles into the missing space. [that weird bit on the left is his neck] The tricky bit is finding the right tiles in the hex editor to change the arrangement numbers from 0xxx to 4xxx [or 2xxx, or 6xxx, defending on how many you are using] I probably should have made a template like @AdamCatalyst's full sized rink map, but so far I'm still using the masochistic method of counting squares. It helps to expand the window so the code is 32 bits wide and I'll just make shapes in the code, but I have run into issues when I get too ambitious where I make a mistake and have to spend way too much time trying to correct it. I'll share this one as an example of a three palette image, but mostly as a deterrent against using the original unedited game or the 2006 PS2 emulated version. It was a foolish experiment that one. Basic layout. Those red and green squares are all repeated as a blank white tile since the original game doesn't have enough to go around. These are the importing images with each section of non-applicable tiles blanked out. Did the same thing with a previous junk file version to import the full image and then cut and paste the required bits. Will admit that I did like the result, but man was this tedious. After this one, I'd have to recommend sticking to either the 30 or 32 team ROMs, and probably limit the amount of palette switching to smaller sections like Zegras' face there. Obviously interested in seeing what others can do and where they go with this, but that's getting the disclaimer out of the way.

Thanks eh. Although, full disclosure, I wasn't the first to think of the TRON+hockey idea, I think I was just the first to post a completed game. And possibly the first? [only?] person person to bother modding EA Hockey.[?] [though seriously, I can't stress enough how much fun playing the 50hz game on the 60hz setting is.] A patch you say? As in so you can re-skin NHL24 so Connor and Connor can show off their skills when they see you on the game grid?

Now that @AdamCatalyst figured this one out, figured might as well link the solution in this thread. One hopes that it is unnecessary to point out that this technique should be uses responsibly. Also, reading some old posts on Puck Struck and came across a review/commentary on Al Strachan's book with Wayne Gretzky posted a decade ago to the beginning of this month and came across this interesting statement. On the other hand... Or, I suppose if you think about it, he specifically never mentioned anything about a "relatively big endorsement fee"...

Hah. *sheepishly raises hand* Yeah this might have been my typical method until I had a location map put together. Sometimes accompanied with drawing numbers and shapes to see all the places a tile is used. Need to try out these fancier techniques some time.

Well shoot. There was my problem. I was looking in the animation code after the penalty box player sprites. And here it was hiding in the code before the sprites. Thanks eh! Actually if anyone is interested, a simple Find of the same Hex values, with including the preceding bits, worked to locate the same code in EA Hockey. 012E 0100 481D @ 72AB4 0137 0100 481D @ 72AEA 0142 0100 481D @ 72B20 I like it when stuff just works. I'll re-upload the ROMs including this fix in the original post.

I'll second @Drezz for sharing my new favourite hack of the menu backgrounds. But I'll have to give my nod of appreciation to @AdamCatalyst for all of his other tutorials that have become an invaluable resource for literally everything else.

Alright, had to revisit this one since I got a lot better at doing these and know a lot more than I did when I put out the original, so here goes. Updates and fixes in this version include: A fourth period length option. Changed up the pre-game match up screen to fit the darker aesthetic and reduced colours. More fitting replay control HUD. Fixed those arena sprites that use the second colour palette. Fixed some discrepancies in the ref overlays that also use the second colour palette. Faceoff ref holds a proper glowing Disc and will turn to look at where he's dropping the thing before doing so. That should about do it for this one. Now to see if it's worth re-visiting for a 2.0 '94 based game... TRON Hockey v1.2.bin

After @McMarkis posted his How To, on the hidden 30 second period option, and the hack turned out to be easily transferable, I realized that I should have done that all along. Also, I should have changed the player pointers from the default, so there's that too in addition to fixing the bench player sprites.

Seems I should have waited on version 1.1 because already here's version 1.2. Only change really is the addition of a fourth period length option after @McMarkis posted his How To on '94 and it turned out the knowledge was transferable. And I took the opportunity to make more thematic player "off screen pointers" since I already changed the active player "star". And a week later is version 1.3. Probably the last one since all the big fixes are finished.

This is great because it had a pattern that could be followed for the earlier games and it actually worked. If anyone is interested, the locations for adding the "Hidden fourth option" are: NHL HOCKEY [92] ROM Offset: (hex)0000E855 Change: 03 to 04 EA HOCKEY [92] ROM Offset: (hex)0000E46F Change: 03 to 04 NHLPA'93 [30 & 32 Team Versions] ROM Offset: (hex)00013D33 Change: 03 to 04 NHLPA'93 [Original Version] ROM Offset looks like it should be (hex)00013D1B as this follows the same configuration as the other games, however changing 03 to 04 there just seems to freeze the game before the animated EASN logo screen loads. Sadly, while it looked like the pattern held true into NHL'95 as far as finding a block of text that looked like the other games, changing this value did not appear to do anything, let alone activating the secret 30-second period option. NHL'96 - '98 did not however, keep the pattern intact, so there was not really anything to test yet. Extra curricular reading: Instead of changing the 03 to an 04, get crazy and try an 05! This didn't crash the game, but led to some "interesting" consequences. By my count "J" turned out to be the 27th number in the alphabet. So a period length set to an "Off, but fighting is okay" number of minutes ends up being 276:36 in length. Which may not be a threat to the 261 hours played in the world record hockey game, it's already almost 2.5 times the length of the longest NHL game. And you still have to multiply that by three. Just hope that after playing just shy of 830 minutes, you don't have a tie game.

Technically this game was built on the bones of EA Hockey because the PAL version has 50 fps and when you switch your emulator to NTSC 60hz, you get a 20% boost to everything [I think the overall physics were tied to refresh rate, so it's not just a matter of being faster] It gets intense. To clarify the intent though, this game was meant to have a bit of a double meaning with the title. The "beer" in the league also alluding to the fact that each team was sponsored by a beer company. Kind of like how in the first half of the 20th century, it was not uncommon for there to be leagues of amateur teams that were both sponsored as well as consisting of players that were bankers, or factory workers, or post office workers or what have you. This was back before there was the breadth of access to watch professional games, so if you wanted to see hockey, you had to organize your own games. And on attendance, I seem to recall some commentary that during a stint in the 1930s, some Montreal amateur teams were better attended than the not-yet-mighty Canadiens. So basically the sort of point of the game was that the teams were manned with employees of the respective breweries with the player numbers being references to significant dates in the history of those companies, since I went way too deep in that rabbit hole for some reason, and the stands are filled because they game free tickets to their employees, their families and their promotional marketing team and vendors and those tickets probably also included a seat to watch the game! [see the joke was that they were drink tickets... ah never mind]

Eh, I actually already deleted the upper deck in the corners, so it looks like they are playing in a community centre. Figured that was alright. And besides, I tried making a side view empty seat sprite before and didn't like the results, so four rows of people is fine. Curious what one would do with player names in '92. The game doesn't have player stats, or even a line editor, so there is nowhere to actually view the players if they did have names. To that point, it might just be easier to transplant the fighting frequency and after whistle brawling back into '93. [although by easy I don't mean it won't still be stupid hard] Line indicators are a tricky one. I've found the sprites and was able to do some different things with transparencies to reduce the real estate they take up, but so far the only way I've found to eliminate them from the screen entirely is to play with line changes off.

Apparently art is never completed, just abandoned. ...and then picked back up later on. UPDATE: Version features corrected the bench players, so they wear the same uniforms as the guys on the ice. And also up in the original old post. IIHF Hockey (91) F3.binIIHF Hockey 92 F3.bin

Continuing on the '92 edit train to catch all of these, both versions have been updated with player bench sprites that match on-ice player sprites. Updated both to main post as well. Beer League Hockey 91[1.1].binBeer League Hockey - 40oz Edition[1.1].bin

Long time coming, especially given how easy the fix was, but the bench player sprites now match their on-ice counterparts. Updated in the original post as well, but here are the new versions. Blades of Steel 2 [US]1.1.binBlades of Steel 2 [JP]1.1.bin

Figured I'd post these here. These are essentially the base ROMs of the original NHL Hockey [NTSC] and EA Hockey [PAL] with two minor fixes. First up: Finally figured out why the away team bench players had weird colours. They use different sprites from the home team... but... why? Corrected the sprites to match the home team and display the right colours. North Stars are darker because the original game was using the pants colours for the entire uniform. Using mod of EA Hockey to better display colour issue. Old yoke for both Home and Away teams used skin highlight tone and sweater in the pants colour. New sprites have the bench players' sweaters match the players on the ice. Also shortened the pants so they don't go down over the knee anymore. Fix number 2: All-Star teams are teed up for Playoff mode shenanigans/personal modding options in NHL Hockey. United States and Yugoslavia are available to try to win the EA Hockey League playoffs in EA Hockey. Fix #3 Penalty box player socks. Problem with these ones is that unlike the bench players where the home and away players use different sprites for whatever reason, the penalty box players use the same sprites, but different palettes. Unfortunately I was not able to figure out where the code that determined this is located. If anyone can be bothered to figure this out, let me know eh. Never mind. Many thanks to @kingraph for figuring that one out. 92 - NHL Hockey+Teams Fix.bin 92 - EA Hockey (E)+Teams Fix.bin

Actually, figured it out. Seems that unlike the later games, the home and and away teams are using different sets of sprites. Seems redundant. And also prone to mistakes. As self illustrated here. It would seem that simply copying the lower [home] set of sprites over the upper [away] set should fix the issue. Haven't found out for sure either way yet, but I'm wondering if this is also the culprit behind the penalty box sox. Looks like I'm going to have to update a few games... Edit: Confirmed The penalty box guys are grouped in with the animated crowd sprites though, and there is only one set of them. This likely means that the socks are listed in the overlays code somewhere, but I wasn't having any luck. Aside from that, I changed up the socks on the bench and sin bin sprites so they match the on-ice sprites a bit better. Definitely going to have to update a few ROMs now.

NHL Hockey [92] has another issue with the players on the bench on the other side too. But again only the away team. Not sure what they have going on there, with colours seeming half a set off.

We talking like.... Or maybe if Mike Milbury whacking some guy in the face with his own shoe is too much, maybe just that old guy in the blue sweater getting tired of that kid that keeps banging on the glass so he pelts him in the back if the head with a beer can.

Alright. Couldn't help myself, quickly mocked up an idea and it looks like maybe a third of the original animated tiles would still move, while combining the classic and modern sensibilities. Assuming this is enough to not overload the memory, this might open up some interesting possibilities...

Hold on.... So does that mean that if say, to "reduce" the size of the image, one could theoretically trade the spinning cup out for a version of maybe half the size and have transparent/static image for the rest of the sprites and that might still work?

Oh no... What have I done!?!

Well, I suppose constructive feedback is always welcome. Actually I've always been of the mind that it's good top be original and have a unique vision, but on the other hand, you don't want to use an inferior idea solely on the basis of being different.

Whoa whoa whoa! Just for the record, I was not trying to incorporate betting ads into my games. Actually... if you were just trying to disable some of the animations, you could always go the low tech method. I needed to disable some animation for a project that needed the arena to be smaller, a la community centre, plus while exploring options for the obligatory outdoor rink. Found the section where the sprites for overlaying the animated portions of the crowd sit here. Plus what might[?] be part of the code that controls animation as it directly follows the sprites and the games seem to follow that convention. What I ended up doing was just make the animation sprites that overlay the sections in question, into transparent blocks and called it good enough.

Actually in all seriousness, I think this one might[?] be plausible, as there is some code after the animated sprite tiles that looks like[?] something similar to the animated Stanley Cup in '95 on the Playoff Bracket screen, but unfortunately any kind of messing around I tried with that just crashed the game. That being said, I didn't try that hard, so there is a good chance I was just missing some key thing. Or there is always that chance that it is compressed like the ref animations and off limits for the time being.