Drezz

Technically - you wouldn't climb over the boards to enter the penalty box anyway. The players line up from left to right. I'm sure you could alter "where" they line up, but the animation will always put the player in that same spot each time. I'm curious as to what would happen in a penalty fest when more than 3 players are in the box. It would be an overlap. Not that it's THAT much of a big issue. It is a 30 year old game after all....

So given what @chaos discovered in the source for checking, it is plausible that you could isolate where the one timer is in NHL94 and shoehorn it into 93.

I'll try and organize it a bit better. It's been over a year since I messed with the music files, so I'm a bit rusty. Once I get elbow deep, I'll pass along what I've found.

I dunno if this happens to you folks, but have you ever been trying to think of something different to hack into the game and see if it's possible? It happens to me ALL the time... yet I always seem to forget. So as a way to catalogue or debunk some of these wacko ideas, I have decided to start cataloguing them here. I welcome all modding mythbusters to come in and state if these thoughts are confirmed, plausible or just busted and to be sent to the area in my brain where the bad thoughts go (not THOSE bad thoughts... perv!) Here goes: IDEA 1: Multi-track music files So most of you know I managed to stick in a new title theme into HNIC 90-91, complete with 4 instruments. I'm wondering if there's a way where we can isolate and reinsert each individual instrument so that they play their own part of the main track. Right now, I just made a faux harmony thing, where a specific instrument plays a certain pitch range. That's far from perfect though. Using smoz' python script, I had to fake the theme by breaking it. And it was a slow agonizing process. One that I wouldn't inflict on my worst enemy - so I'm loath to explain how I did it to all my good buds here. It's a torture I don't want to inflict on people I like. If smoz script could be adapted to read more than one instrument off of a midi file, that would be absolutely grand. IDEA 2: Visors We've done a variety of little hacks here and there. Adding tape, players on the bench, coaches, adjusting stripes on player jerseys, referees and timekeepers, goalie equipment and so on. Here's my random thought... has anyone considered a visor on the player helmet instead of those dead little eyes they have? IDEA 3: Fighting Okay, before you start throwing tomatoes, hear me out. We always get someone waltzing in here asking if we can put fighting back into NHL 94 - we all know logistically it's not plausible. But have we considered looking at it a bit differently... what if there was a way to figure out how to implement a one-timer in NHLPA93? All of the animations are there for a slap shot and bullet pass... it's now trying to figure out how to trigger it. Just a thought, of course... but I couldn't just let that one evaporate into the ether without asking at least. *SIDE NOTE* I am still alive and kicking. Just doing some updates to HNIC 90-91 (Colour portraits? Coach's corner theme?) before I unleash the final version of the opening day rosters and the long awaited playoff roster version... before moving on to HNIC 91-92. It's good to be back.

Inserting music requires A LOT of trial and error. I figured out the title theme, but stopped there because I was exhausted from the 1,000+ iterations and micro changes I had to make in order to get it sounding good. I wanted to change the matchup screen music and ingame menu screen music too - it's still something I am interested in. If you have specific questions, let me know and I'll do the best I can to help you out. There's a few things I've forgotten and may have to wade back into the muck again to figure some things out.

** blows dust off thread **

I have been on the waitlist for said donuts. *claps hands disapprovingly* CHOP CHOP

I started with an existing ROM and compared it to a base version of the 30 team ROM by wboy which is also a good starting point to learn where the decompressed graphics and reordered tables and pointers are. Then I just used the 30 Team ROM and started from scratch with the notes I had made and the ones here from wboy & KingRaph. Experiment! Sometimes you come up with happy accidents. Lord knows I had my share... (background tile for me)

The other big issue you may encounter is limitations in RAM. The pics probably won't render in 16 colours as there's too much going on. I had this issue when working on the background tiles. I was hoping to make it full screen, but it would crash. The shared palettes thing is very tricky indeed.

Leave it to me to cock things up. That's my style LOL

You may laugh, but the side experiment thing bears some serious fruit. That's where I figured out how to edit the menu theme and the menu background tiles. I didn't feel like doing the arena tile work for the reverse angle view. So I started on those instead LOL

I told my English teacher wife about the semi-colonoscopy. She is going to include that in her grammar arsenal.

I love minor and dev-league mods. Definitely going to check this out!!

So... try being with someone for 24 years and do the same thing. Me: "Hey, you still haven't played my ROM! Do you wa- Her: "F@#$ off, A Million Little Things is on. Be quiet" THAT'S AMO-REEEEEEEE

I know you're waiting for it - been too busy to dedicate any time to it yet.

Thanks so much for following up and sharing the knowledge. I've been swamped and can't physically get to anything at the moment.

Make a request for it - it seems like a similar operation. Doesn't hurt to try lol

Yes! This was on my wish list for months. Thanks!

Once you listen to this version, you can never go back to any others. It slaps HARD

For the player sprites, my plan is to do more dithering. It's REALLY time consuming but looks great. Same as the black border. I'll put up a few proofs when I'm able so you can see what I mean. Guys... this is exactly how I felt doing the HNIC theme...

Yeah I think I'm gonna have to do a V2 of the player sprites. I'm not entirely happy with them overall - I figured by using the skate blade & sticks together that I would free up even more available colours, and totally forgot they affect ice colours. For what I was trying to do, it worked - but it can be WAAAY better. I toyed with an idea of putting a black border around the sprites to make it a bit more cartoony (and for something "different) and it actually looked super cool. I'll save that for a different concept, but I am still going to look at some way of refining the shading as I feel there's not enough depth. There are definitely a few stray pixels from an animated fan back there I believe. Another one of those graphical items that are on the list as well. I was gonna let that one slide, but if you caught it, someone else will too LOL! With the goalies I did a few things: - removed the 70s style facemask and streamlined it to a cage - assigned the pants colours to the mask to differentiate it from the jerseys and make it stand out - simplified the pad design on the front and back The nets are actually stock 30-team ROM. I changed the crease though. I shortened it so it was nicer proportionally to the ice width. Thank you for the technical review on the visuals. I appreciate this and it will help my next release get better. This is still my "first" ROM too. LOL

I'm sure if you keep playing and listen you may hear music instruments instead of bodychecks LOL

Okay - version 1.1 has been released... VERSION 1.1 Updates - Boston Bruins logo updated to era correct version - Player sticks/Skate blades changed to white in order to fix colour issues on ice logos - Shayne Corson and Stephane Richer portrait photos flipped back to correct spots - New York Rangers photo portraits updated HNIC 90-91 Season v1.1 (NHL 94).zip

That's exactly what I was thinking! It could be done, it's just figuring out how to do an auto save to pull stats from that I don't know about. I'm sure if I mapped out my thoughts to make more of a cohesive design doc, a programmer could give me some more insights on the technical aspects. HAY... CHATGPT, DO MY HOMEWORK FOR ME PLEASE

I've thought about the exact same thing. If you built a standalone season/dynasty program that creates a schedule and gives you the option of playing/simming the game by jumping to a save state matchup where you can take it from there... the issue is creating that save state AFTER you've finished the game and extracting the stats to go back into the program and fill out the necessary tables to track the season stats. I've thought a lot about it, tbh...