von Ozbourne

Lehigh Valley -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 032 032 064 064 064 096 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 192 192 128 032 128 064 032 224 160 128 032 032 000

Syracuse -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 000 032 096 032 064 128 064 096 128 064 096 160 096 128 160 128 160 192 160 192 224 192 192 224 192 224 224

Glad you took that one. Looks good. Henderson -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 032 032 032 064 064 064 096 096 096 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 192 128 096 032 160 128 032 000 224 000 [unused] Springfield -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 128 128 128 192 192 192 190 032 032 224 192 032 160 128 000 000 000 032 000 032 064 000 064 128 000 096 160

Ontario [not the province, but the city that was named after the province] -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 032 032 032 064 064 064 096 096 096 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 192 224 000 000 [unnecessary] 000 224 000 [unnecessary] 000 000 224 [unnecessary] Providence -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 032 032 032 064 064 064 160 160 160 096 064 000 160 128 000 224 192 000 224 192 064 224 224 064 224 224 128

Is that an older or alternate one? I got this directly from the AHL website.

Well now, I was looking at the version of their logo that was just the pig head, but I will say that the detail on the text looks really good here even with the limited resolution.

Couldn't decide on this one so I took a multiple choice page as well. All use the same 11 colours. emulating the gold border on the word mark. no gold border. just grey and white hybrid. gold border on the larger "Eagles" but not on the tiny "Colorado" Colorado -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 192 192 192 160 160 160 064 064 032 224 192 064 224 224 096 000 032 128 096 128 160 192 000 032 224 128 160

I originally started reading this as a list of things that you were looking to implement for the next build, and was intrigued by your mentioning of this change. Mainly because I've worked on a few games where I used the 0-15 scale, but have slowly stated reverting back. Actually changing a couple of unfinished projects to 0-6. Mainly I just found that I wished the increments were more like how '93 handled percentages and that an RNG mod I'm testing out had a habit of pushing half of the guys into 99 Overall territory [even when half of the individual stats were showing "HOT" in the low 80's]. Eventually I had to change it back to 0-6 and the numbers became more predictable. Curious if you'd encountered anything like this or if your rating system was able to account for that [l think I remember you mentioning that you tone down RNG so maybe not this exact issue] I will say that on the goalie front, I tend to prefer "better" goalies so as not to just rack up a score. I also like the option to hold onto the puck until I can get a clear pass, so the range and time are nice for cutting down stoppages. Goalies going into the corners is also nice to nullify dump and chase tactics, even if they do go into the stupid "Brodeur no-zone"

Took a stab at a couple more tonight. Abbotsford and Tucson weren't bad. But then I figured I should get a word mark one out of the way. Can't say I like the results so far. Ended up spending about an hour on this one. Even going as far as to start redrawing the text, but halfway through the spacing of that awkward font was becoming a problem, so a new tact is in order. Basically looks like it's a question of what will be the least ugly/most legible. Getting late though so that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Calgary -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 192 000 032 224 096 128 224 160 192 224 192 192 224 224 160 224 192 032 224 160 064 224 096 032 192 064 032 Chicago -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 192 000 032 096 032 032 128 160 032 192 192 192 160 160 160 128 128 128 096 096 096 064 064 064 032 032 032 Coachella Valley -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 192 000 032 128 000 032 064 032 032 224 096 032 160 064 032 224 032 032 192 192 192 160 160 160 032 032 032 Iowa -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 000 064 032 000 096 032 032 096 064 032 128 064 064 128 096 128 160 128 096 128 128 160 192 160 192 192 192 Laval -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 000 032 096 032 032 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 192 224 [#13 - #16 unused] Rochester -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 000 000 064 032 032 096 064 064 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 000 000 224 064 064 224 128 128 192 192 192 Texas -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black] 224 224 224 [white] 032 064 032 064 128 096 096 160 128 128 192 160 160 192 160 192 192 192 160 160 160 096 096 096 064 064 064 Toronto -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 000 032 128 032 064 128 096 128 160 224 160 192 064 032 064 032 096 064 224 192 032 224 064 032 192 192 192

Well shoot guys. I did up a few last night, but something wasn't feeling right. Slept on it and realized the problem. I was using the wrong number of colours. I remembered that the bottom 9-16 and the #8 spot are used for logo colours and #6 & #7 are for white and black and #2 & #3 are the Home team banner, #4 & #5 are the Away team banner, but that leave #1, which is, like many other assets, still for transparency. Shouldn't be too much of an issue to remove the one more tone. Some of these didn't even need the full allotment of colours. I edited the Moose entry already and will post the rest a bit later.

I guess I'll post this here as a general note. My trick is to use photoshop to create an index colour image with about three times the allowable colours and the then use the colour table option to decide which colours to round up or down in order to adhere to the SEGA palette, but also maintain some sort of contrast when reducing to twelve including the default white and black. Still requires some manual drawing, but at least this way it's 90-95% of the way there. The other reason[s] for posting is that I used the version of the logo without the word mark. Is there a preference to which to use? I figure in the case of the Moose, Phantoms, Admirals, Ice Hogs, Thunderbirds and Roadrunners, at least they have versions of their logos that don't contain text and that would drastically improve how well they translate in 48x48 pixels, never mind tacking on the twelve colour restriction on top of that. Colours: -R- -G- -B- 000 000 000 [black unused] 224 224 224 [white] 000 000 032 000 032 064 032 032 064 000 064 128 000 096 160 064 064 064 096 096 096 128 128 128 160 160 160 192 192 192

Damn. No Mercy was so fun back in the day.

Certainly thinking about doing that again, but my free time is already earmarked for some other projects and chores. And it'll take me a while after the tournament to collect a of the stats anyway.

Yes to this, but I will just add that it only pastes the order of the players. So if you simply copy/pasted the entire rosters from '98 and pasted them into '97, this will work. But if you rearrange the order that the players are listed in the Players window in anyway, you will notice some issues. ie: if your first line consists of the fourth, fifth, seventh, fifteenth and twentieth players in your list, then copy/pasting the line will select the players in those same slots to make your new line, even if you first rearranged the order of the original players for some other organizational purpose.

Turns out much like Baseball Stars for the Pocket, the monochrome version of Hockey Stars was adaptable to the colourized remake as well. Updated the full review above, but here it is. Hockey Stars NGP Colour.bin

Oh!.... I did find out something about this one. You can actually change the palette in the player cards. In the original game anyway. I don't think I figured out the 32-team version. The problem however is that the palette numbers reference a different set of colours depending on which screen you are on. Although, speaking of 32 teams, with the Arizona door supposedly being left open a crack for the next five years, [assuming they don't repeat a New York Americans situation where the franchise was withdrawn in 1942, but not officially cancelled until 1946 when the owner tried to reactivate it] is it time to try to add another two teams to the NHL'94 fold?

As someone who usually plays an aggressive defensive game, I've had that fourth, fifth... sixth guy jump into the box and either overlap the rightmost player or possibly just disappear. [Actually I had run an experiment in NHL95 back in the day, playing as Pittsburgh, I had so many guys in the box that the game only gave me two players on the ice and my d-man was Ken Wregget. Only three of those 20 penalized players displayed in the box obviously. Then my brother played 20 minute periods, got Cam Neely to score 40 goals in a single game, and completely glitched the season and anything that recalled the records] Back to '94, I don't remember where this was originally found, but there is a code that determined how many players line up in the box. No problem reducing it to one or two, but when you logically increase that number to four, it doesn't work so well. Was hoping that you could just extend the box and have another guy sit to the side or in the crowd or something, but it just completely glitches the game.

With the checking source discovered, am I the only one who wants to know how to tweak the values? I'm thinking along the lines of increasing the range of effect, so you can go from half the dudes no-selling like a jabroni to now half the dudes flipping out like Hong Kong kung fu movie minions. Too much?

Given that Baseball Stars Colour was literally just a colourization of the original monochrome game released a year later, It probably wouldn't have been that hard for SNK to give this game the same treatment. And I was thinking it would be nice to see some of those new/old assets in something other than grey...

Those are interesting tournaments. Takes a lot of research to make those historic games though.

"So you got all the other ones, what about the Pocket?" "What?" "The NEO*GEO Pocket version of Hockey Stars." "Hm... I'll look into it." Okay. So the idea behind this one, for those who need a quick backstory. As per wikipedia, "The Neo Geo Pocket (NGP) is a monochrome handheld game console released by SNK." It was released in Japan only in late 1998 and was essentially discontinued six months later with the release of the Pocket Colour. It launched with six games and saw another three released by the end of the year, before efforts were switched over to making Colour ports. As a side note, the Pocket Colour would meet the same fate as all handhelds that try to compete with the Gameboy and be discontinued two years later, as would the company. Be discontinued that is. Having declared bankruptcy. Correction: They made ten games that year. And like many of the original Pocket games, SNK colourized it the next year. But since most people don't have a NEO*GEO Pocket kicking around, we're going to cover the ports that came in the same re-release collection as Hockey Stars 0. Alright, that preamble was pretty amble-ly, but it seemed important to set the stage for what this is. A SEGA Genesis game that looks like a Gameboy game. So I present a retro-style review of both the original and colour remake of: While titled simply "Hockey Stars", it is known colloquially as Hockey Stars Pocket or Hockey Stars NGP. Or Hockey Stars Colour! And it was developed primarily by Saurus, a subsidiary of SNK that also developed the NGP version of Baseball Stars. Getting into the game, this port doesn't stick to the original resolution of the pocket screen thankfully. but many of the graphics, as well the the monochromatic-ism of an original Pocket release. Maybe at some point we'll see if they ever ported this one to the colour. It's notable that the team names and logos this time were borrowed primarily from the NES version of Baseball Stars II, rather than the Pocket versions of Baseball Stars, as many of those were heavily baseball themed. One change though is that several of the teams have had logo updates when they looked too much like some initials on a ball cap, and changed cities from some smaller baseball towns, to more traditional hockey markets. At least the game is colour blind friendly. And the Colour version is pretty bright. One thing to note, while the 18 playable teams all have colourful fictional names, being restricted to eight total grey tones including black and white, means that a lot of thought had to be put into contrast, and every team looks the same with light grey home and dark grey away uniforms for maximum discernible-ness at full speed. And now individualized colours in the colour version. Even if some of the teams did carry over some weird, un-hockey-like color schemes when directly borrowing from their Baseball Stars II counterparts. I though Denver was a dinosaur, not a dragon... The game does support up to four players, but being that this is half of the grey tones, telling everyone apart might not be the easiest task. Much easier in Colour. I did like the starry "O" from the original NES game's assets. Alright. One of the best parts of the original NES game, was the player profiles. And we revisit those here too, even if the game doesn't have the capacity to allow for hiring, firing, trading and upgrading. We are treated to a nice set of unique photos. Checking out the player abilities. It would appear that the rosters are also borrowing from Baseball Stars II, and are as usual in this series, vastly min-maxed for acute player specialties. Some playing around with rosters may be required to get a starting lineup that you find best suits your playing style. Goalies be crazy. Some even brought their old-school masks to picture day. While the limited grey scale seemed to relegate everyone to a mid-toned skin shade, it is notable that almost every team has one or two co-ed members. Colour makes for three different three different skin tones as well as some nice mixing it up. Finally, there are three game modes, Single Exhibition, or play for the SNK Cup in a 16-Team Tournament with Single Elimination or Best-of-Seven formats. There is also a Shoot-out mode from back before those were played out. And the trophy actually looks like gold now. I don't know if there was a colourized version of this game. Turns out it didn't sell well on the rare system, so SNK made the switch in hopes of having a good launch day selection. Might have to see how the reception to this one went. Hockey Stars NGP.bin And now Hockey Stars NGP Colour.bin

I will say that I did do a bit of looking into this one, but... I did use the blue of the player shadow for economical reasons. Long story [that I can't really explain very well] made short, the problem I found is that there just simply isn't enough pixels to get the point across in a manner that I liked. Best I could manage was to just change the dead eyes to the skin tone to match the old SNK NES look.

I heard it was a very small production run. Probably just never made it to your local game store.

Sorry guys. That bug was intended to be a feature. If you tested out other teams, you might have noticed a trend in that all of the teams that are within reach of making the playoffs are featured in the game, and all of the teams that are functionally eliminated, were told to empty their lockers and go home. Except for the goalie. Who donned practice gear. But he does eventually decide he's had enough and will bugger off as well at the start of the third period. After further reflection, it was probably a missed opportunity to not set the goalie roaming area to the entire rink. Uh...April fools. To make it up, I'll probably set up a real update once the playoffs start.