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I can't help but have the sense that there's massive, massive potential here, if this was pulled off. Maybe it's just the circles I travel in, but aren't people always complaining about the direction EA has taken the series? Like, not just here (obviously), but everywhere? And it's like, part of that disatisfaction is in the fact that EA has completely cornered the market. Like, EA's "NHL" series is to video game hockey, what "Kleenex" is to facial tissues. It's the only game game in town, and the brand name has become synonymous with the product. But anyway, talking about the physics...the 'feel': Imagine if someone, or some group, could figure that out, and nail it down, and have it be like an "engine" that could just be reused over and over. Year after year. EA couldn't do anything about it, I don't think(?). You can't copyright a "feel", can you? And at the end of the day, it's all still hockey anyway. It's so intriguing to me because what we're talking about is so simple. We're talking about the ways in which ten sprites move along a 2-D surface. It's so basic. Well, in concept, at least.

Royameadow: My mistake re: the college thing. It's high school. I think I understand now. Thanks for explaining it to me. All the best in that competition! I didn't know such things existed. Not being at all knowledgable about rom hacking, I'll have to take your word on all that other stuff. I'm just glad there are people like you and smozoma and others, that have the know-how and desire to do this stuff.

Well for anything really. That blog says that game was made in a week. I wonder how it plays. I was thinking of something more fleshed out. Like a pro-sports "simulation" (if that's the right word) in the vein of the NHL series, or Madden, or whatever the current name for the big NBA and MLB series' are.

Decided to look up Snake to make sure I was remembering this right. His linkedin profile has all the stuff he's worked on: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/steve-snake/8/60/3a9 That makes sense about a project like this being done with modern languages/tools/software/hardware etc. That Pygame thing looks interesting. I'm curious to look into what's possible with it. LIke, finished projects. Gonna look into that. Just thinking out loud here, but has anyone even ever made a indie/homebrew sports game? It seems like a lot what gets made are RPG's, shmups, and then little quirky/creative things.

A ton of great info there, smozoma and royameadow. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. I feel like I've got a decent grasp on things. Smozoma: That's really interesting about Sega probably having development utilities they used back in the day for certain aspects, and how useful those would be. I wonder if that "Snake" guy who made the Kega emulator knows about them because he was a Sega employee (as a coder?) at some point? Your explanation about assembly language and Roms and mapping things out really made sense for me. I feel smarter now. Royameadow: Thanks for clarifying the definition of "Homebrew" for me. I wondered about that. That's so cool that you've got plans for 32X and all those features. That part about audio cues got my mind working on all the possibilites that that would bring. When playing the Sega CD version of 94, it was surprising to me how big of difference different audio/sfx makes. It's not something I had considered previously. A question for you: I'm curious about your decision to focus your project, roster-wise, on Massachusetts College Women's hockey. It's just...so specific. Can I ask what the inspiration for that was?

Has there ever been any talk or buzz about this? I'm slightly familiar with homebrew games like 'Pier Solar' on the Genesis. It was, I think, though I've never played it, a really polished game made by an oufit that really knew what it was doing, and was sold as a physical copy with professional-type packaging and everything. I know similar projects have gone on for the Neo-Geo, and the DreamCast, and probably several other systems. As far as I undersand it, the homebrew games that are any good, are usually (always?) 'business' type projects. Like, it takes a group of really skilled people, and it takes a lot of time, so there has to be some kind of monetary reward/compensation in the end. At least, that's what I understand about it. I'm not a programmer, or involved in anything like this, and I'm not knowledgable even in something like rom hacking. So having said all that, do I understand things correctly when it comes to the size and scope of making a homebrew 16-bit game? I mean, obviously, back when official Genesis or SNES games were being released, it took...what...maybe a dozen or so really skilled people to make a game? And it probably took them a year or two? Would it still be like that today? Like, has there been any technological advancements that would make making a 16-bit game today, any easier? In the case of a hockey game, could portions of any of the early EA Hockey games be "copy/pasted" into a 'new' game? Or, for that to happen, woud it be required to have the source code for one of those games? Would any of the amassed knowledge about how to hack the roms be of any use? It occurs to me, that the hardest thing about making a new hockey video game, would be the AI for the computer controlled players. Is that true do you think? I'm very familar with a game called 'Streets of Rage Remake', which is a sort of tribute to the orginal Genesis games. It's fantastic, and as far as I know, was made entirely "from scratch". It took the people that made it, a very long time though. Like seven or eight years. And it was released for free, probably making it a pretty unique project in the realm of homebrew games. I just think it would be so cool to have a new game that played just like NHL 92-94 (or even better) but with a ton of new features. Anyway, curious to hear any insights about any of this.

Thanks for the tip. That looks to be a pretty ambitious/thorough project!

Has anyone made a complete version of this, with the rosters/stats and everything?

Ah, OK, thanks. I thought so, but wasn't sure. I just saw this neat writeup on how GGPO works: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/177508/The_lagfighting_techniques_behind_GGPOs_netcode.php So...it sorta has an A.I. that predicts what you're going to do, based on what you've done previously? It's the wee morning hours here, but I get the sense that there are many answers in this article, and it's concise and well written. I'm out of my element here, but I wonder if this technique wouldn't work as well on a sports game? Seems as though, in human vs. human game of NHL 94', there would be so many variables - and you wouldn't do the same thing more than once, as opposed to a fighting game, where you might (combo patterns and the like). I play a lot of old-school shmup type games, and one of the issues that comes up, when using emulators, is input lag. This is even just for offline play mind you. For example, say you press 'left', and it takes say 3 frames for your spaceship to move. Someone on the shmups forum (http://shmups.system11.org) made a special version of MAME that used some technique that knocked off a frame or two of delay. Something involving the computer drawing the sprite layer before a different layer, or vice versa, or something. There was a lot of controversey because this offended some of the MAME people. They maintained that these delays were part of the original games, and that if you tried to "fix" this, you were no longer playing the original game, which is something the MAME people care greatly about, as they should. They also didn't care for the accusation that MAME introduced extra lag. Many arguments were had. Anyway, fighting games and shmups are probably the two genres of video games where input lag is seen as a major issue. And I know that on the shmups forum, there are a lof of emu, mame, and other tech wizards who obsess over single frames of input delay. I bet they could give advice too, and for free too.

This is great! Thanks!

Kind of an old thread, but I find this interesting. A good place to float this idea to at least find out the feasability, might be the r/emulation subredit. Most of the posts there are of the "how do I get emulator X to do such and such" variety, but I know a lot of devolopers hang-out there. Like some of the key MAME people, etc. They could probably steer you in the right direction and save you some time. Is gens open source? I know that writing an emulator from scratch is a pretty monumental task, so I'm assuming this potential project would be some kind of fork off of an already existing emu?

Thanks!