von Ozbourne

The idea of having actual fighting was not lost, but then there is the issue of a lack of player photos. Which I may be putting too much weight in? But as branding goes, I felt it was an important feature. I am curious if the over-the-top arcade-type settings can be incorporated into '93 though. With the similarities in the base engine, it might be possible, and lend itself to that logical leap.

Alright. We're breaking a weird one out of its cage today. Cage match that is. The basis of this one is a big what if. What if the folks who made this classic, tag teamed up with the folks who made this... classic?, then play into a tie-in with a tournament format and you get this classic. Now to frame this as a retro review, We'll have to start with the obvious. Returning to the developer role after 1989's WWF Superstars and 1991's WWF WrestleFest arcade games, Technōs Japan Corp and their subsidiary American Technōs were looking for a win and hoped that returning to the only well that had been commercially successful for them, outside of their Kunio-kun and Double Dragon franchises, would help the failing company. Apparently also taking a page out of the Kunio-kun book where Technōs combined fighting characters with contact sports, Vince McMahon decided that it would be a good idea to license his WWF brand to a non-arcade-wrestling game this time around. It is probably just a coincidence, but it is too bad that Technōs filed for bankruptcy protection less than a year after completing this game. Not that I'm saying that this game did them in, but the timing leads one to believe otherwise. Not getting off on the right foot here... Never mind all that. Now that the stage, or ring, is set up, it's time to look at the game. I'm not sure if the "winners" campaign was still in swing by this time, but that splash screen brings back some memories. Being a North American release, the game is localized with the American Technos distribution label. Titan Sports is of course the parent company of the WWF at the time. Getting right into it, while listening to the chuggy music, the branding is right out of the Superstars era, with many references to previous games, tv shows and events. The text is flavoured with references as well and a player can mark out in different types of events from a Single Match, an Ironman Single Elimination Tournament or a full Best-of-7 Survivor Series and matches varying in length of nine, 15, 24 or take on Ric Flair in a full 60 minute match. Tagging between lines can be turned off if you just want to play with your top five favourites, or set to Player or Manager [computer] controlled. The goalie can be controlled by the player as well, or locked out of player control. Macho Man approves of penalties. Getting into a game, one is treated to a pre-match introduction by the legendary Mean Gene Okerlund as he runs down the teams and who is hot or cold. I should probably note here that the RNG variance on the Hot and Cold streaking is quite high. This makes things a bit interesting as you will never really know who is popping versus who is probably hiding a bad injury. On to the game menu screen, it starts to become obvious that the arena is not your typical hockey rink. The boards are replaced with ropes, the plexiglass with steel cage bars and the Zamboni with a runaway cart from Wrestlemania 2 and 3. The banners and jumbotron also callback to previous WWF games. Evidently, the Ultimate Warrior and Bret are feeling really good today. And a familiar pair is seated ring rink side providing commentary. Once in a game, more features are visible. The referee is sporting a gold WWF logo on his shirt and the game clock advertises the Technōs America Sports Network, which unfortunately didn't become a thing. While The Rock wasn't a thing either, yet, his dad was, lending his tag team's name to one of the teams. There are only sixteen teams featured in the game. Enough to hold a Survivor Series bracket, but given the limited number of Superstars in the featured era, that is plenty. It should also be mentioned at some point that each team only comprises of twelve players, enough for two full lines and two goalies, plus two managers that are only going to get involved when the goalie is pulled and they can run some interference. Or not at all, in the case of some managers who prefer to let others get their hands dirty. Despite the slight anachronism, the Mega Bucks are united as the brute squad blocks the net. While by today's standard, about half of the wrestlers featured in this game are dead now, it could be noted that a small handful in the game had already passed by the 1995 release date. But the game draws from notable wrestlers who were prominent between 1980 and 1995 just to fill every team so it works in universe. Also, why would anyone want to not play as Andre? The game features colour photos for at least 224 wrestles and managers. While not available to be put on a line by the player, the managers can be viewed in the profiles screen like every other player. Getting into the game finally, it soon becomes clear that there have been some tweaks to the rules from your typical hockey video game. Aggressive play is promoted, even if sometimes it is penalized and your entire top line has to take a seat on some folding chairs. Due to the small teams, minor penalties are only a minute long and a major, usually for injuring another player, is two minutes. But it should also be noted that since you are effectively only swapping between two lines, the player fatigue rate is slow, while a player on the bench recharges very quickly as they stomp the side ready to jump back in. Vince didn't even have time to react to the chaos in front of him. Another thing to keep in mind is that the opposing manger will try to push in the dying minutes while behind. If your computer controlled opponent is down by one, two or three goals with less than a minute to play, they will pull their goalie for an all out attack. But you can attack them first, such as throwing them into the concrete wall that is meant to separate the teams so they keep their transgressions to the ice. [it was probably too hard to animate the players getting up to yell at each other back in the 16-bit era anyway] Another notable difference is that the Match Superstars is rated based on who gets over with the crowd the most. And since hitting gets the crowd to their feet, Certain players will get the fans' vote, even if their team gets outscored. Note that the same RNG that causes the wild swings in Hot and Cold also boosts a players boost, so big hits can be plentiful if you're not afraid to dish them out. Winning the tournament will give you the prestige of raising a championship belt, but the losing team did get to take out their frustrations on the hapless jobronis. I think I featured all of the graphics in this one, but to recap the game play and highlight a few other bits I may not have mentioned yet: RNG is jacked up for cheap pops, dozy painkiller induced slumps and bit hits that your opponent will sell like a champ. With only two complete lines [plus a third "best of" hybrid] fatigue is programmed to facilitate long shifts and quick recoveries. Team names adopt a four letter format. Match length refers to total game length. 9 minutes [3x3], 15 minutes [5x3], 24 minutes [8x3] and 60 minute man. Three-Star calculator favours rough play. Penalties of one or two minutes in length. Players can be moved around to play any position but goal. Two non-player assigned managers are on each team. Of which one will usually jump in if the goalie is pulled. X-Button selects the goalie. Goalies don't wear masks as they fearlessly roam the entire rink. To save the player from themselves however, if the goalie crosses over center ice, the play is whistled dead. Because nothing is worse than goalie rushing the other end of the rink and then losing the puck or getting knocked down by the opposing goalie. But player controlled goalie can roam with the puck indefinitely, while the CPU cannot. Please use responsibly. Off-sides are optional, Icing is not. As in there are none. Use however you want. I lied, there is a 17th playable team, but that one is more of a "Be a Player" mode edition featuring You! and a few ringers to help you out. Number of teams has been increased to 21. Sixteen "main" teams, plus "Your" team, plus three additional "Enhancement teams", plus an unlocked bonus team. Rather than end on a fake rating, I may as well note that this one has been in and out of development for quite a while but if anyone comes across something I missed, or hopefully if you just like it, let me know eh. Now updated with four more teams. WWF-SSShoot-Out v2.1.bin

Looking this one up for later. Found the offset to do the same thing in NHLPA'93 Offset: (hex)006ED2 Change: 3438 to 6002

Always interesting when a logo font is finally tracked down, even if the official font is not completely identical to the version used in said logo. You have a point about the 5 though, so I'm curious what EA decides to do with that. Possibly they do even keep it as is. Possibly they slightly modify it, using a bit of the shape of the 3 to "unquirkify" the character. Possibly, and this is looking over the history of EA's NHL series, they have averaged a new font about every 4.5 seasons, so there is a non-zero chance that they do continue that trend with a new word mark that, like the logos from 2000 on, is based around a bold block font that maintains the similar feel, but also adopts changes that are keeping with current ad design trends. Regardless, I'm probably just going to do what I always do and wait for the official cover art and just adapt that.

Rather than going on cynical conjecture, [there is a big story out of Edmonton about how AI integration is going to enable the termination of about 1500 jobs with Turbo Tax which may have influenced my assumption], I decided to actually read up on this [crazy!] and apparently you are correct. The three Davis [brothers?] are going to be brought on to help run their platform. Beyond that the public information was slim, but good for them.

Oh yeah. Going by the Conroy statement, I'd say (c) was their motivation. To be honest, I'm not ever sure that the previous owners/administrators would be kept on for much longer than the time required to give an internal guy the design doc on how the systems worked.

I recall hearing several people mentioning that the Capitals could just keep it going as a pay-per-view website, I actually didn't really use the site so I didn't think about this until the Hockey Guy pointed out that the site used what could be considered "proprietary information" about the other 31 teams, so selling access to peasants could get the Caps into a lot of trouble. I also recently heard an interview with Craig Conroy on the matter where he basically admitted that they used it for some features, but they had already been developing an internal tool that wasn't publicly accessible as well. Didn't mention specifics, but he did say that they had some features that they liked better with CapFriendly and were looking to import them into their internal tool. Back to Hockey Guy though, he pointed out how this is kind of part of the NHL's current attempt to pull the wizard's curtain closed again. Fans know too much about the business. We should just stop worrying and learn to love the game. Like ignorant kids who don't question how the league made a few billion in profit, but I should still be prepared to follow the three month's salary guideline for buying season tickets. And then make a few prop bets while downing my beer and popcorn at an 800% markup. Oh well.

Thanks for the kind words. I have to say that the silly thing with testing ROMs is that you do run into that issue where some glitches pop up and you might not notice them for a few versions. And then after those get figured out, a new one might show up as a result of the "fix".

Okay. First off, nice set up. Reminded me of how disappointed I was when my parents opted to have an e-recycling service pick up their last remaining CRT rather than letting me know to drive home to get it. But as luck would have it, less than a year later, some friends had an old CRT in their kids' room and I mentioned offhand that would be great for introducing them to retro games. They responded that they were actually going to get a new TV later that month and were going to hand-me-down their current flat screen to the kids' room. I immediately told them, hey, if you want to save the dumping fee, I'll buy it off you. They didn't take my money, but three weeks later, I was playing Duckhunt for the first time in fifteen years. It was glorious. Back on the topic of the error om that CRT screen though, I just noticed that it is an easy fix that somehow slipped through the "QA department". Issue was that I copied the lineup card from each teams' last game. As best I could. Some teams ended up using more than 25 different players in their three games, so I gave preference to players who played more games or got more points when it came to shaving down the rosters to fit in the game. Issue with that was that meant having a couple players in the final game not making the final cut. This actually only affected Ambri-Piotta and KalPa, but while I made a hybrid lineup on HCAP, I forgot to fill one space on KalPa's third line. Doesn't crash when you just play, but you do end up playing short handed when you send the Checking line out. I'm guessing it just crashes on entering the Line Editor from trying to parse the nonexistent Left Winger. Thanks for the heads up. Original post is updated with the fixed version. Again. edit: Oh yeah. I also switched the Swiss version to reflect the more local abbreviations of Frolunda [FHC] and Davos [HCD]. The rest seemed to be fine, or I just couldn't find a good example. [other than HC-AP which has one too many characters]

Oh? This is interesting. Actually now you have me thinking that I may need to switch this for the Suisse version. Could probably also check to see if there are any abbreviation differences used for the other teams while I'm at it. Although the thing is, I can't say for certain what they did in on European broadcasts because those were annoyingly difficult to look up, but those abbreviations were borrowed directly from the TSN broadcast.

I guess I can understand how it happens. As the type who will occasionally miss the forest for staring so closely as to completely encompass my entire field of view with a single leaf fallen on the ground. I also notice how this happens in writing sometimes. I'll get tripped up on a typo or misplaced word in print and wonder how that survived the editing process. But then I realize that this thing happens to me ail the tome when typing out same thong and you do nut sea any rad squiggly lines udder any wards on the scream so you just assume that yo spilled everything correctly. Than your brain fails you buy skinning over it and fulling on the blanks on a way were you don't oven realize whit you air mussing up.

Alright, sorry folks but I noticed a couple small things that slipped under the radar, so despite the protracted development, I ended up updating it. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.1.bin But, as a bonus, I liked the idea of a "local" version as well and also switched the presentation from Canada's TSN to Switzerland's SRF Sport network. The rebrand just brings in the new network sponsor logos and TSN host Dustin Nielson steps aside for SRF [or RTS in French] host Steve Roth. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 SUI.bin Update added to the main post as well.

Insert development hell joke here. But the good thing about retro games is that you don't need to stick to a stringent release schedule. I also guess I could have waited two more days to get to that "half a year to the day" mark, but here it is anyway. In honour of the 100th anniversary of the oldest invitational hockey tournament still played today, although due to mostly war and pandemic reasons, six tournaments had to be cancelled over that time span, serendipitously making this the 94th tournament to be held, I would to present a "review" of: Quick history, as noted, the tournament was first held in Davos, Switzerland in 1923, and originally devised by Dr. Carl Spengler, mainly as a way to promote friendlier competition with clubs from German speaking regions who may have been ostracized within Europe due to that thing that happened in the previous decade. It is held between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve and according to the foundation charter, he wanted to offer nations that had previously been enemies the opportunity "to test their strength in peaceful battles and to take one another’s hand in friendship." The tournament was held outdoors from 1923 until 1977 when its current home, the Eisstadion Davos, was built and where every tournament has been held since. Interestingly, that original outdoor rink still exists today right next door to the stadium, yet the organizers completely missed the opportunity to add a "Winter Classic" style outdoor game to the slate to commemorate the event. Anyway, as for what did happen, fittingly the home side was able to break a twelve year drought, winning the tournament they host, and are now in a tie with other tournament favourite Team Canada for the most overall titles with 16. On to the game. The art style in this one is a little different from typical Team 1920 games a it features a more "vintage computer" look with a much higher reliance on dithering than typical console games of the era. This becomes apparent right from the opening screens. As is the featuring of sponsors, which used to be much more visible than what you would see in a typical North American setting. While the title screen shows the exterior of the unmistakable Eisstadion Davos, the main menu brings you inside where you see the iconic wooden beams that form the signature of the building. The title bars are a bit of a throwback to the previous font used by Davos and the colour player photos lean into some of the inconsistencies that are found within the photographic methods of the different European teams and leagues featured this time around. While not an official team photo, Josh Jooris was excited to meet his new team. This being a North American release, the only North American based broadcaster at the games was TSN. Apparently host and play-by-play announcer Dustin Nielson showed up a bit early for his local co-host and colour commentator Doug Honegger so he could make the pre-game presentation solo. TSN's SportsCentre also presents the scores from around the sport. Foreshadowing some other events held at the same time. The Player Cards mix a bit of old and new styles while main tournament sponsor UBS... [which apparently like many banks these days, is no longer an acronym, because having a city or country in your name is not good for multinational aspirations] ...gets a main sponsor presentation. Interesting note here. The Head Coaches get a nod in the team listing, but they aren't available for play, so don't worry about that 23 overall rating. Of course there is an option to compete for the Spengler Cup. I'd recommend the one game playoff as it is more in line with the short tournament, but an extended Best-of-7 option is available as well. Due to the nature of a six team format, the method used to fit in to a normal four round playoff is to just give teams byes. Every team gets an option to go straight to the penultimate or just ultimate game, but you as the player will always start in the round of the bottom four. Some breakthroughs in the coding mean that matchups are quite varied, which is nice. Once in a game, line changes can be made so that every player is available for every position other than goalie. Players are listed numerically though because that is aesthetically pleasing. It would have been visually interesting if that trophy pedestal could continue all the way to the bottom of the screen, but fading out works too. As that line now takes to the ice, we start to see some other changes to the usual format with the TSN branded game clock, the referee facing the correct direction [thanks. I can no longer unsee that @AdamCatalyst] and a wood coloured floor nonchalantly sitting off to the side there. Which prompts a closer look. Wood construction is very much the hallmark of Eisstadion Davos, so it had to be featured in the background here. Sadly the developer seems to have not been able to come to an agreement with another tournament sponsor, Skoda, so there is no car in the corner of the arena, just more seats. Main sponsor UBS's logo can also be seen here peaking out from it's normal place at center ice. Skoda does get a feature on the game menu screen though. In the banner over the exits at the top of the arena stairs. Which are here in wood. Another sponsor, Swiss Air, get their usual spot behind the penalty boxes. And while they did not keep this feature up this past year, the penalty box bench give a nod to a feature used in previous years of replacing the penalty bench with a row of airline seats. It was an interesting feature, much like the old Swiss Milk sponsored jersey cow referee uniforms, that instigated a lot of talk on previous TSN broadcasts. No Hitsch mascot here, but he Zamboni driver decided to don a Davos jersey and helmet. Of note here is that while typical "Five and a game" penalties don't mesh well with the '94 coding, injuring a player will get you a double minor on those fancy seats. And there are those national teams again... As there was some space available, this game comes with a bonus Two-for-One Holiday Special pre-installed DLC if you will, in that the other Boxing Day to [just after] New Year's tournament, the World U20 Hockey Tournament, or as simply known in North America as the World Juniors, is available to play as well. The caveat being that while you can play as the ten Juniour teams, the branding will still be Spengler related because the game doesn't support multiple... everything presentation related. Someone else will just need to take the teams out and make that game. Wrapping up, what's a good score... One and a half hat tricks out of a Zamboni. Hope you enjoy. Updated version Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.3 CAN.bin and the localized Swiss Edition. Spengler Cup - Davos 2023 v1.3 SUI.bin

This might be redundant at this point, but figured I'd note a final thought on the playoff matchups. Given all of our thoughts on the "randomness", I decided to be very deliberate with mixing up my draws for a mod I'm nearing completion on, that will have a "2-in-1 bonus" or whatever you want to call it. When I've done this in the past, I've just made the first 16 draws for the "main" group and the bottom 16 draws contain just the "B" group of teams. Keeping to this alignment, I was not getting a lot of variety in matches. Then using the same ROM, I copy/pasted the draws to alternate A,B,A,B,A... and now every time I scroll back and forth to a selected team, I am getting a different opponent. Well, I was technically still getting a lot of repeats, but that is mainly due the divisions being pretty small in this instance and not because the game was forcing me to play Draw #1, 60% of the time.

Technically this isn't an update as much as a standalone ROM. This is also just a SEGA Genesis version of the game.

Technically the center ice logo can be both rotated and have the line go through it, but the drawback there is that the logo ends up sharing space with the center line, which only uses half a tile, which will then lock in your colours to the same ones used by the rink as opposed to using the team colours. This was an example I made of this. Or the other options would mean having about a four pixel gap between the logo and the center line, or I think one of the original games used the face tone to fill in the middle part of the center line, but the shift in colour is very conspicuous and you're kind of better off without it.

Okay, you did a nicer job of explaining the point I was trying to make. Although now I am wondering, if our theory is accurate, then I might need to rethink some of my "Two tournaments in one" games like multi-level or men/women World Championships. Usually I would put one complete set in the first 16 options and then have the second complete set use the last 16 options. So this could mean locking in a 50% chance that I'm getting that first option for either side. Anecdotally I have noted some lack of variety, so maybe going forward I make sure that the playoff draws are listed A tournament ,B tournament ,A,B,A... to take advantage of some more options.

Figure I'll just dump my notes here to the open source since I actually jotted them down this time in a manner that could possibly be followed by other people. GO TO: C67E2 = Tile layout order for player photos. 0006 0006 = 6x6 layout of photos. 2000...2023 = Order of tiles for photos. Used universally for all. Change last 6 numbers [201E 201F 2020 2021 2022 2023] to 601E...6023 to set to fourth palette. Or change to [601E 601F 2020 2021 6022 6023] to leave the neck area as the default tones. GO TO: C678C[HEX] or import 812940[DEC] = Palette 2000 colours used by default for photos. Note that the 3bpp Linear codec as used by the player photos, only uses the 6th through 14th colours in a palette that is referenced by the 4bpp Linear codec setting used by everything else. GO TO: 4D614[Hex] or import 316948[DEC] = Palette 6000 colours for default main menu background. This is not normally used and is conveniently left blank. Change the following eight colours to White, Black an an array of basic uniform and neck tone colours. GO TO: 11CE02[HEX] or import 1166854[DEC] = Palette 6000 colours used by coloured Ron Barr photo plus Overlays and HOT/COLD graphics. Change the following eight colours to THE SAME colours used in the previous location. Coordinate this with Ron Barr and HOT/COLD sprites, noting that those assets are also able to use the remaining eight colours to get the desired look. Advised to leave white as the first colour as this is also shared with the "window frames" and the "MATCHUPS" title. GO TO: E9146[HEX] or imprt 954694[DEC] = Palette 0000 colours used by Player Card screen text and background. Change the following eight colours to THE SAME colours used in the previous TWO locations. Note that for some reason this change uses screen palette 0000 instead of 6000 so it will affect the background and overlaying text on the this screen. Leaving white alone is a good idea. On a side note, changing the entire Player Card background to use palette 6000, will make the background share the same palette at the NHL/PA logos. As the logos are only greyscale anyway, the default background colours can be shifted here without being much of a problem for the logos. Just be sure to edit the logos to use the proper colours. And for the banner colour overlay method. Player Card Screen Locations of tiles for bottom row of player photos. E95D2-E95DC Change 00E5 to A0E5 to change tile to use variable team colour palette as well as be moved to top layer over player photos. Will need to borrow a couple of tiles from elsewhere in the background image to make shoulder shapes that can be layered over the player photo. Remember to locate hex numbers for other instances of those tiles and replace them with the number of a different tile that may be close enough to not notice the change. Using the blank background blue 0000 tile in place of an almost blank background blue tile would be a good start. Borrowed tile can now use dynamic team banner colours to make an overlay that will add jersey colour, however this overlay will also affect the team logo when viewing the team rating/starting line. If logo background is the same colour as the uniform, then this is not noticable. As long as the team logo does not overlap the area designated for the coloured shoulders.

Hmm... Now I am wondering if I read this right. If the playoffs are drawn with a hint from the platter of random. And the result of that random is that should a chosen draw not contain the team the player is selecting, the game will just run linearly down the list until it encounters a draw that does contain that team. Then perhaps in the case where only half of the teams make the playoffs and half do not, there might be some cases where a team will not be featured in a draw until a ways down the list. So if I'm reading this right, say Ottawa is not featured in any of the playoff draws until the eighth option, and maybe also not featured in the last eight either. Going on the presumption that it also rolls over, that would mean that any random playoff draw landed on from 1-7 or 24-32 would result in the selection algorithm rolling over to option 8. Effectively meaning that 50% of the time, you are going to get whatever team is playing Ottawa in that eighth draw. If this is the case, this could perhaps explain some of the discrepancies.

Because that's not what this topic is about. But on the topic of player images, after sleeping on it, I realized that I can address a bit of the colours issue by adjusting the collar of the sweater. By centring the neck in a way where the middle two tiles only have neck and the sides only have sweater, and maybe using some creative greying to blend the two, the middle can be kept at the default colours leaving one more colour available for the shoulders. Probably yellow, although that still means that there are only five universal tones available for all 32 teams. Might as well share this option as well even though it is a bit half baked at the moment. Regarding the Player Cards screen, the colour sharing issue could be addressed by setting some of the tiles behind the photos to overlay the photo layer. This is in the hex code for the background of this screen and can be done by changing the 36 "00E5" tiles that make the background of the photo/logo area [shared by the top row of the coloured team name line] to "A0E5". The "A" meaning both that the tile will adopt the #2000 palette colour used by the team banner as well well be displayed on the top layer. Although you will also want to change the "0E0" part to the numbers of different tiles as well. Probably two that will be commandeered to make a mirrored shoulder shape with a transparent background. The stipulation here though is that those tiles will also overlay the team logo, so unless you are like me and like to have uniform coloured backgrounds behind your team logos, and position the logo in a way that doesn't interfere with the space allocated to the player shoulders, and also don't mind having the same shoulder shape for every single player, [something that I suppose isn't as much of a problem if you are using a more artistic style for the photos] then maybe this is an easier option that also provides more versatility in colour. But only on this screen.

I don't know how useful this will ultimately be as the options are limited, but I figured I might as well add a hypothesis turned discovery on this topic. I found the code that determines the player photos layout and changed the bottom row from 20XX to 60XX. This meant that it would now use the fourth palette option when displayed on a screen. The drawback is that it uses a different palette depending on what screen it is on. Main menu is easy. That palette is open and unused [unless you are using Drezz's menu bg hack, in which case it is also a spare, unless you are like me and set your entire background to use palette 6000 in order to separate it from the overlay assets] The colours are used universally though, so after accounting for white, black, grey and a light skin tone, that only left four colours remaining. I suppose if one when with a comic book style shading and put a shadow or over the neck area, or maybe just gave everyone crew necks, the grey and single minded skin could be removed in favour of six total colours. For this test my only colours were red, orange, green an blue. The wrinkles however show up when you get to other screens, like the pregame, where palette 6000 is subbed in with what the host and overlays are already using. Some rearranging of colours, while staying true to what the windows and text to stay put, meant that the Ron Barr's substitute needed some rearranging, but it can work. I haven't yet fixed the Hot/Cold things, but that could have been made to work well enough in the new confines. The Player Cards screen uses yet another set of background colours, with 6000 normally being reserved for the NHL/PA logos. But the odd part is that the photos actually borrow palette 0000 from the background. I actually added an extra bit of mess here in making the background different so some parts are affected more than others. I was able to have some of the background share palette 6000 with the NHL/PA logos, and I suppose if the whole background were changed to do that, it would make it so the colours can be changed without having the other bits get messed up. The only problem now is that while it is interesting to have some colours, I'm finding it a bit constraining to have so few to work with anyway.

This... This is a thing that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. Basically because technically there are 32 different playoff draws that can be drawn from. And I've actually been annoyed by the lack of variety in first round matches to the point where I've gone in and set the draws up in a way where every one is completely unique. But then when playing a game and scrolling trough the playoff options, it still seems that the teams still favour one or two opponents a disproportionate amount of times. So I don't have an answer to why, but I'm just guessing at this point that there is something in the way the game handles the playoff draws where it's not actually just going down the list every time you pick a team,

A few days late on this one, but better than never right? And with the fairly predicable trend in the current playoffs, I guess this means one can virtually correct reality. Presenting: The reason why this one is getting its own entry is because it is by a new team comprised of @AdamCatalyst, @Jkline3 and myself, and combines hopefully the best contributions of both of our previous games, under the banner of the X-Factor Edition. Also switching it up with some retro art style adapted to the modern logo. And Ron Barr gets called back to call the games. And if the duo-tone Oilers uniform and logo isn't enough of a clue, this edition puts its emphasis on the alternate uniforms when available. Retro and modern styling combinations stretch into the Player Cards. Not in black and white though, but that's kind of just channelling the SNES version. Player benches are imported from Adam's release, with some new animated Coach sprites. Players can play any position. Long names contracted to original 9_10 format. Player sprites adapted with the composite sticks New 3-Star calculator And more... Hope you folks enjoy this one. NHL 2024 - X-Factor 94.bin

https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/9966/winnipeg-jets/2023-2024 Default 2024/25 year does not have all player numbers listed yet, but last year[?] does. I guess maybe you need to check all the tabs? The Roster tab has just the bio info. Number, name, age home town, height, weight, handedness. Stats tab only has the name and stats. There is a Depth Chart tab and an In The System tab for minor leaguers, but you basically have to check each player individually to get any of their info. Lines tab just links to a popup of Daily Faceoff, which I guess is better than nothing.

Jersey numbers? <quick check> Ah. yes, they defaulted to 2024/25 already. I set it to 2023/24 and the player numbers were listed. The thing with that site is that you have to select each team individually and they don't always have complete data on everything. On the data side, they format it weird, so basically I have to copy the table and paste it into a spreadsheet with html formatting, then convert it to default formatting and delete the team icons. And un-merge the joined cells. ...Yeah the site used to be formatted more usefully until a couple years ago. The lack of right or left defence is a drawback though. Supposedly leftwinglock.com is good for getting line combos and game sheet type stuff, but it requires you to register to use the site. No idea if this registration is also a paywall thing though because I just couldn't be asked to do it. I hope this information is good enough to satisfy a plea bargain. Although I am curious if I should be let off with a warning as clearly by whipping out a 20 year old reference, I have illustrated that I am simply out of touch and not a threat to society or myself.