von Ozbourne

Given how long this community has been modding, I'm not sure how useful this will be to most people, but as a spreadsheet nerd, I did find this to be helpful to me. 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

Full disclosure, I did run into some annoying problems trying to fix the ref in the other images. The tiling for these guys are a bit jumbled up with other code so I was just as likely to glitch the entire window as I was to black out the stripes, so I opted to leave it alone. On another note, I was thought it would be cool to clear the bench as most teams only had the six skaters. [Teams still used the rover in these Olympics, but recoding the game to allow for the extra attacker and goalie to be on the ice at the same time, that's a bit of an ask] This too was kyboshed by the fact that when the bench players move, they share sprites with their on-ice counterparts. Well, that's one solved at least.

Alright, been plugging away at a couple rather large projects for some time, and needed a palette cleanser. Been a while since I've played around with the 30-team 94 ROM and man, it is so much easier to work with. So we have a fun opportunity to dive into the history. Presenting: Unlike other World Championships [which technically the Olympics doubled as up until 1968] there was no way of pretending that this could have been a contemporary release. However, last year was the centennial of that first Olympic hockey tournament... Suppose if last year wasn't such a mess, I'd have remembered to "release" this one then. Original Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace logo over interior shot of the Palais de Glace d'Anvers [Ice Palace of Antwerp] where all games were played. 7th Olympic games [Summer, there were no winter games yet] Dutch/French postcard fills in the splash screen nicely. Old and New Red Ensign vs 48 Star banner and ice markings. William Abraham Hewitt [yes, the father of Foster] was the honorary team manager of the gold medal winning Canadian representative Winnipeg Falcons team, but while there he still managed to fulfill his roll as sports editor, whose columns were printed in such papers as the Toronto Star and Winnipeg Tribune. This is also the first tournament for the Czecho-Slovaks since they unified the regions around the old country of Bohemia. Old and New Interestingly enough, at the time, the only markings on the unpainted ice were the blue lines and center ice dot. The referee at the time was just a guy in a suit. Occasionally in those early days, games were even officiated by the managers or coaches of other teams. Old and New While there was no painted crease in those days, it helped to scuff up the goaltender area. Also, the old box frame built net. Old and New Brought back the period correct "Zamboni" as well. In lieu of an ad, settled on an '20 style art deco clock. Had tried to rig the seven participants into a staggered playoff format. Annoyingly, despite how much I nerfed some unplayable teams to effectively create a "bye round" scenario, there was still a 25% chance that the horribly unskilled placeholder team would manage to get credit with a win anyway. So to spite the AI, having NPC teams play themselves to guarantee the bye was the way to go. Removed previous versions as they were broken and sucked. Olympic Hockey - 1920 Antwerp [1.3].bin

Heh, had to use the Forsberg eh? Got to say, that was pretty snazzy with the holo-imaging.

Sorry, I meant the MegaDrive/Genesis versions of 96-98. They all use essentially the same engine with a few tweaks. The main difference between them and the 92-95 versions is that the main menu does not include the default match up info and some of the options are disabled depending on what game mode you are on. Given that the team selection is on a second option screen after game mode/settings are set obviously complicates matters, but the Menu options window doesn't even show up in NOSE when editing those games. Admittedly I'm only asking because not being able to change the default match up is the one thing that really bugs me about my mods of those games. Yeah it keeps coming up that the program is attempting to change the "about.png" file in the same folder as NOSE. Also gave me separate "Cyber Secure" and "Ransomware" tags. Part of it is likely due to the fact that you aren't a "trusted source" like Microsoft or Adobe, [no comment] but it's weird how aggressive the antivirus is being. Admittedly I don't really install many new things on this old computer anymore so my sample size is skewed. Weirdly, I allowed it and did some poking around yesterday, and then it went back to blocking by default again tonight. Version 1.2B only needed me to allow it the one time and it's been fine ever since, so something weird is going on here. [To overuse the word]

Aside from the obligatory "Whooooooaaaaa", I had a question... but then I just tried it out and answered that question myself. But now I have a new question. I noticed that the default program works with up to 32 team ROMs, but any thoughts on making 34 the default? [For the sake of kingraph's NHL95 34 team edit] Incidentally, I copied over the 34 team roms.ini file from my NOSE 1.2B to the 1.2C folder and it worked fine. Second question: The SNES functionality would be really cool, any thoughts on having menu option functionality for the NHL 96-98 games? As an aside, I did however have quite a lot of fun with my antivirus wanting nothing to do with this version. Perhaps it was just due to updates, but I don't remember having anywhere near the level of difficulty getting it to allow me to open the the 1.2B exe file.

At risk of sounding like that that guy that raises his hand and goes "Oooh, ooh.... I don't know", it sounds like the stuff that has the most problems is the stuff that has the weirdest aspect ratios or overlays. Guessing given that the two splash screens are 40 tiles wide and show up fine, where some of the other screens are only 32 tiles wide [or the rink, which, you know] and have some funkiness. Then there are the tile layouts for the asset overlays like the main menu [team logos], pre-game [Ron Barr], Playoffs [The Cup], probably the team banners and player cards as well. These all use a dedicated tile orientation and layout with a different numbers of rows and columns as well, and I'm guessing they reference the edge of the screen somewhere in the code to determine where to place the stuff. If I were to venture another guess, the messing with the aspect ratio of the display, probably messes with the reference point of those overlay images as well. This is where the "I don't know" comes in, because I'm not the guy that knows how to test this. Or if it ends up being one of those things that can't be done without breaking something else. But if I were to imagine a fella smarter than myself, then try to think, "what would he do?", this would probably be where I'd start.

That was a bit of a wild one... didn't intend the pun, but running with it anyway, although now it makes me wonder if one of the owners liked to play Japanese imports. Huh. That I did not know. Although it is kind of funny when put in the context of how I came up with using that name. When the old Quebec Bulldogs moved to Hamiton, they were called the Tigers. And it just worked that Tigers and Lions fit the rival theme. [big cats] The "just working out" method kind of influenced a lot of the themes too. Motor city borrows the Racers name. For some reason the character of the Bostonian Irish Catholic third generation cop jumped out at me, so they get to chase the racers in hot pursuit. The ironically named Philly likes their sports to be hard hitting and it helped that Dave was "the Hammer". And since "Nails" is an awful name for a team, it helped that the second most important smithing tool is named after Jim. I'll let you off the hook with the Foxes. with Jets and Bombers off the table, I just went with my favourite animal for my old hometown. And it allowed the old WHA rivals to keep rivaling it up with the "Pack".

Oh yeah. Figured while I was at it, I'd make some instruction manual pages based on the original Konamic Ice Hockey manual for the Famicom Disc System. While not noted in the North American version, the teams in the Japanese version actually had nicknames. So following the "rivals" method of the original, the eight new teams were also given related team names. If anyone wants to guess the process that went into choosing names. [For the record the team names are actual Japanese translations.]

Wait, no rosters to research and painstakingly rate? Sign me up! The goal here was to use EA Hockey for the purpose of exploiting the PAL 50 Hz refresh rate on the NTSC 60 Hz CPU setting. The fun part is that the resulting 20% boost in frame rate also affects the physics. Add in that every player has juiced stats [with a little variation based on the slight differences in attributes in the original game] and you get a game that plays at a frenetically fast and furious fun filled pace. [Seriously, I played this throughout the week it took to make, then loaded up a standard NHL 93 game and it felt like the ice was molasses.] Unfortunately, I forgot that the two separate penalties for winning and losing a fight was not programmed in until '93, otherwise I could have made the trademark move of "2 minutes for losing a fight" and the victor gets off scot-free, but that one feature didn't outweigh the trade offs. And shout out to @CoachMac and @The Dopefish for coincidentally mentioning EA Hockey, as the total teams/teams playable in playoffs edit was something I was trying to figure out just as the Coach gave me the answer. [I actually went with less. It will make sense in a minute] And finally, much like the original Blades of Steel NES port was known as Konamic Ice Hockey in Japan, this 16-bit sequel also has a North American and Japanese version just for fun. On to the retro review screen caps. Uh, ignore that. Really, Konami actually made this game. North American and Japanese title screens. Enter "the code" to unlock six additional teams! Different text as Romaji is typically all-capped. And the Japanese version still uses the same colours regardless of being the home or away team. For the North American version, the body and striping is reversed so all away teams are in grey for greater contrast. Although some all-colour games look nice too, the problem is when you play intra-squad games and everyone is dressed the same. National teams are playable in exhibition mode only. Japan is featured in the Japanese version, but the assets for the U.S. team were still included in the ROM data for an easy localization. Both versions have the return of the original eight Canadian and United States club teams, plus eight new cities to round out the expanded playoffs. Shameless in game ads also make their return. All your friends will want it. What better way to respond to a three goal deficit than with another fight. [Using the 'C' button a lot will prompt quite a few] It can get excessive if you let it. What better way to celebrate a comeback than running a guy and starting a fight? Celebrating scoring the game winner in overtime by running a guy and starting a fight obviously. It doesn't even need to be in overtime to celebrate a win. And in the finals the ticker is finally gone so you can seen the shamelessly branded Zamboni. Play with line changes on for a new challenge. Line 1 is the base stats, Line 2 is the speed line, Line 3 is the bruisers. All stats are the same for each player on a line except for one or two "unique" players. Numbers are taken from notable players pre-1990, [when the game was released] with the occasional number making it onto two rosters. So #9 on Detroit can fight #9 on Hartford. Or #9 on Chicago can fight #9 on Winnipeg. Or #99 on Edmonton can fight #99 on Los Angeles. [just kidding, 99's unique stat is that his fighting is a 1] Couple other Easter Eggs in there, but that covers most of it. UPDATE: Version 1.1 features corrected the bench players, so they wear the same uniforms as the guys on the ice. UPDATE: Version 1.2 has fourth period length activated and selected player star and off screen pointer edit. UPDATE: Version 1.3 finally fixed that penalty box player socks issue. Blades of Steel 2 [US]1.3.binBlades of Steel 2 [JP]1.3.bin

Alright, apparently this series is like a Junkion. It's not hard to knock 'em out, it's getting them to stay done that's the trick. So special thanks to @CoachMac for showing me how to finally get the last two teams included in the Playoff selections in the original EA and NHL Hockey [92]. This means that now you can play as the United States or Yugoslavia in playoff mode. So here we go again. [also updated the original post] IIHF Hockey (91) F2.bin IIHF Hockey 92 F2.bin

Dude. Thanks! Also, just in case anyone else is interested in future, I found that the offsets and values were slightly different for NHL Hockey. To play as Team #23 & #24 [Campbell and Wales All Stars] in Playoffs: @E68E change 7816 to 7818 @EAAC change 0015 to 0017 @EAB2 change 7415 to 7417 These are offsets for a clean ROM and I found that they move around after some roster edits have been made. Also important to note that those teams will need to be included in the playoff draws or else it will crash the game. [Found that out the hard way]

If you're interested, the '91 and '92 editions of my World Championships series are based on NHL Hockey. I also made a TRON based mod of EA Hockey that's posted here already, but I kind of want to go back and tweak a few things now that I'm more practiced.

Oh? I'm actually doing something right now and would love to have the last two teams playable in the playoffs instead of just "Also participated". [I'd even like to go back and edit the other games I've done with this knowledge] I'll trade you the info I have on editing banners? Can't say I know about simming data though.

So what you're saying is; reenact every goal Gretzky scored in the '80s, and the goalie will act like he was trained in the '80s.

Thanks everyone. Admittedly the text was the only thing I wasn't sure about, [I eventually found out that the colour palette is shared by a few different assets so it was a compromise hoping to make it as legible as possible and not break something else.] but I reeeally wanted to use that background, so I hope it's fine? Yeah. Sadly, figuring out the music is a whole next level. It would be amazing if I could get a 16-bit old-school Hockey Night in Canada theme in there, but I don't even know where to begin. Heh. When you find a technique, let me know too eh? I usually play great defence in any game I pick up, but post '95, figuring out scoring is not my strength. As evidenced by the final test match I played where I out shot my opponent 38-4 and won 2-1. [Both were one-timers if that helps] ...That's not entirely true. I was able to figure out some scoring plays in the 2K series, okay; in EA games, I'm usually not the guy that you want to count to score that big goal.

Might as well toss in the "10 minute misconduct for fighting" version of "Real Final Cut Edition" of 98 in here too. IIHF 98 F.bin

With the Final Cut editions out of the way, it seems it is time to release the next installment in the series. And it gives me the chance to make another retro review so I'm going to take it. With EA outsourcing the development of the SEGA Genesis version of NHL 98 to THQ while they concentrated on the fancy new PlayStation and PC versions, Team 1920 still took care of the Genesis conversion for IIHF 98. However, when EA started work on the '99 installment of their hockey franchise, it would only see a release on the Playstaion, PC and N64. This would not normally have been an issue, however the team was unable to procure a dev kit for the new systems and EA seemed to have forgotten they were still around; as evidenced by the fact that EA had not yet attempted to buy 1920 out, before they started neglecting the small production company. With nothing else going on at the time, the team decided to take matters into their own hands and do what they do best; make a Genesis game. And 'cuz they say... 2000 zero zero, game over, oops, out of time. So tonight I'm gonna party and play... After two years without a title screen athlete, the developer made the decision to feature eventual #2 overall scorer and #1 fan favourite, Finland's Teemu Selanne. The game was again based on the '96-'98 game engine and would feature the improvements that appeared in the '98 version like switching team controllers, line coaching, goalie changes/injuries and less predictable AI. Also, after a year of forgetting to do so, Fighting majors are again assessed a 10 minute misconduct. As the dev team was not a fan of the dark, and in some cases quite ugly, graphics style they were constrained to in '97 and '98, they took the opportunity to go for a much lighter scheme, while taking every opportunity to change as many assets as possible. Not wanting to reuse the team selection "Flag in a circle" logos for yet a fourth year in a row, and to emphasize their full licensing agreement, National Team sweater logos are now featured in place. The new team name font that debuted in IIHF 98 does make a return, while the menu titles get a new jumbotron dot matrix light styling. While the top 26 ranked teams did not change from the previous year, the five unranked teams were switched out in favour of some less highlighted teams from the bottom five in 36th placed South Africa [making a return for the first time since IIHF '93], 37th ranked New Zealand, 38th place - 2nd year participant - Turkey, 39th overall Greece and 40th place rookie Iceland. To spruce up the playoff bracket, a rink style background was added, reminiscent of the ice surface in IIHF '94. For uniformity [and limitations] of the season mode logos, a clean new set of flag logos were added similar to what the IIHF would use on their website 20 years later! The full contingent of uniform logos would be carried over to the center ice area. The "Champion is you!" picture and winning team photo were carried over from the previous year however because the dev's art director was already going quite batty and just couldn't be asked to spend any more time on those things. The team selection rankings also still posed a challenge that was only overcome with mockery, but it's funny to wonder if perhaps Canada is ranked 6th in tape usage because their 26th ranked stick boy has been eating it. That said, I'd give it a perfect 5 out of 7. IIHF 99.bin

The final of the Final Cuts is finally ready for the finale. IIHF 98 [Final Cut Edition] Most teams already had national program center ice logos, but they all do and they are actually period accurate. Uniform colours are also more period accurate now. A couple player names that slipped through the cracks were shortened for formatting constraints. Fixed Team Austria's "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" Championship banner. A couple other minor fixes that I can't remember right now. Note that still unresolved are: Team selection ratings thing. ISO team name thing. Simmed season performance not matching player ratings thing. IIHF 98 F.bin

I used to work with the guy that scored the first goal in modern Ottawa Senators history. That was kind of cool at the time.

Lesser and/or Simmons might turn out to be the best chance. Similar to the story a couple years ago of former Team17 programmer Chris Blyth finding the original source code for Worms on an old Amiga that was sitting in his shed since the '90s. Here's hoping anyway.

I guess the story would be that the double dipping wore thin, [and lacking an extra-teams mod] so there was no "Championship Edition" for '96, meaning fans had to wait for the new year. Still not a fan of this one, but at least it's better now. IIHF 97 [Final Cut Edition] Following the new licensing trend, center ice logos are modeled after sweater crests. Some uniform colours also corrected to period correct styles. Again most names were already modified for display. Fixed a few that didn't quite work. Fixed Team Austria's "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" Championship banner. Some things that are still not quite ideal, but are above my pay grade coding-wise. Team Select still has weird rankings because I can't figure out how to edit the rating numbers. The team "city" name being a three letter ISO code due to how it's integrated in various places in the game. Not a horrible workaround, but could have been better. [Not quite] a perfect ten. IIHF 97 F.bin

The reconning is taking over now as we see the release of: IIHF 96 [Final Cut Edition] Full licensing is in full effect with the change over to center ice sweater logos. Uni colours are adjusted for period correctness. Most player names were already fixed by this point, but I think there were a few I missed so those are good now too. Speaking of missed, fixed the part where Team Austria used to say "Mighty Ducks of Anaheim" on their team photo when you win the championship with them. [I get the backwards name of the Ducks, but oddly the Avs and Coyotes had a separate bits for their names too. Found the Avs before, they are all fixed now] Wollen sie mit mir spielen? Nein? IIHF 96 F.bin

For the third year in a row, its the late special edition. Kind of foreshadowing for the days to come of buying day one [and needing a day one patch] or waiting for the inevitable "Game of the Year" edition to come out. IIHF 95 World Championship Edition [Final Cut Edition] This edition sees the return to full IIHF licensing including all national team logos. Teams are increased from 28 to 34 as compared to the original IIHF 95. In most cases sweater logos are featured at center ice. As usual, team unis are adjusted for period accurate colours. Some player names still needed to be adjusted for formatting issues. This is the last time Belarus' flag will need to be fixed. Some minor tweaks like menu banner colours and what not. They say, 8-bit is enough. IIHF 95 WCE F.bin

It's 1995. Brad Pitt is the sexiest man alive, Michael Jordan ends his budding baseball career to try to win some more championships with the Bulls, Bill Gates releases a new operating system, Quebec decides to not split from Canada and EA releases it's fifth annual installment [seventh overall] in the IIHF hockey franchise. IIHF 95 [Final Cut Edition] In this edition, the one year licensing agreement for the Championship Edition of '94 is not held over, meaning a return to Coat of Arms based logos. Team uniforms are edited to match period accurate colours. [although the new player sprites added a layer of difficulty] Name are edited to fit formatting where needed. Belarus again with their white-red-white flag and Lithuanian like crest as the government will not decide to change their flag until this June. A couple other minor fixes. Like Hungary's flag is no longer upside-down. [seriously disappointed in myself for missing that one] Playing for the Silver Seven. IIHF 95 F.bin