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Olympic Hockey: Beijing 2022 [The Series]


von Ozbourne

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Well, I had originally started this a while back ans set a goal for myself to see if I could complete a set of games before the Olympics started. Then stuff happened, bla bla bla... You know what they say about best laid plans...

So since the actual rosters version of this idea is in a bit of development hell, [The fact that some countries waited until very late to announce their rosters didn't help matters either] I figured I might as well pull a AAA move of releasing what I have now, and just patch it later. </caveat>

With the development Orpheus-ian journey finally over, I figure the best option is to just post the complete series in one place.
Updates to be spliced in, like for starters, the complete array of title screens.

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Hey, games take a while to make, the idea for this one started back when NHL players were still supposed to be going, in spite of you-know-who's smarmiest efforts.
Wait... three game?

Yeah, why not. So there are differences. Like these:
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Splash screen is even more a bit cluttered with all of the groups that were needed to sign off on this.

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Default to last Olympic finalists, Non-Russia gets a new logo which fits in well enough with the ISO-3 Code/flag team selection icons.
Small changes here. Most notable is the inclusion of new Qualification Round countries as playable teams. Replay the final qualifying round and re-write history.

Speaking of history, figure I would mention that in light of contemporary world events, despite being someone whose great-grandparents emigrated from Ukraine to Canada, I do prefer historical accuracy over revisionism. I did however change the reference to the ROC team as only ROC. I did decide that Qualification round team Belarus was expendable, so I dropped the Group D team in favour of Group H Ukraine because screw it, I can. The women's side didn't enter a team, but being currently ranked 40th means that they wouldn't have fared very well or really be playable anyway.

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In lieu of being able to figure out how to hide some sections of the playoff bracket, bye-round teams get the double-up effect. Luckily, having enough spots for playable and non-playable versions of the same teams means that there are no first round mirror games.
Playoff mode is expanded to allow for regular 12 team [men's] or 10 team [women's] bye-round infused format, or take one of the lower ranked teams straight from the Qualifying Round to the Medal Round and win it all.

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Like in PyeongChang, the three major sports networks in Canada are sharing a small team of presenters and announcers comprised of members of CBC, TSN and Sportsnet. Former CBC and TSN, now with Sportsnet, commentator Chris Cuthbert was selected to be the play-by-play guy.
Not much change on the men's side [other than lower overall ratings] but to make things equal, Olympic pre-game presenter Kate Bierness is present as the Olympic pre-game presenter.

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You will likely notice the crowd. I had originally intended on an empty area look, but was unable to come up with an empty seat sprite that I was happy with for the sides of the area. So, since this is just a prototype, we'll just say that the dev team figured that we'd be able to have people in the stands by now. I'll just figure out something else for the real-rosters version.
Still couldn't do much with the crowd that I was happy with, so we'll just ignore that. 

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It was nice that the default arena palette worked so well with the Beijing 2022 logo. And in spite of the gobs of money the inferior Sportsnet was attempting to throw around, broadcast branding went to the classier CBC Sports.
You even get to have a game end in a stupid shootout like the IIHF if you like. ....and go back to the main menu screen.

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Another in lieu of, being able to figure out a formula to select the single best player of the game from each team, we have five rings for the three stars.
Nothing really different to point out with this screen, so I'll just mention that teams now have an as-accurate-as-possible-to-Nike's-craptacular-unfit-for-hockey-uniforms-design-aesthetic sprite colouring. Sadly, some of the player sprites don't look that great, but then neither did the real life players!

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Similar to how in my 1920 Olympic game, when I inadvertently predicted the official name change of Czecho-slovakia/Republic to Czechia, [I just used the traditional shortened name for the sake of fitting less letters] the prototype China team was based on the KHL's HC Kunlun Red Star roster. Including a Chinese guy named Jake? [who yes, is a relation] It does kind of show the mockery of the IOC's "passport=nationality" rulings as well as highlight how the IIHF had to make concessions to avoid embarrassing a hockey program that is about 20 ranks and three and a half divisions out of their element.

Oh well, play as these guys [or one of the Qualification Round teams] for "extra challenge mode".

One benefit to the "official releases" is that unlike the prototype, IIHF.com had 99% of the player photos right there. Automated image editing for the win. And for the teams that didn't qualify, I just used the default man/woman graphic like they did.

While the Women's side was actually quite straight forward, I feel that ratings may be contentious in the men's side. This is mainly due the the difficulty in comparing player stats with either tiny sample sizes, or from vastly different quality of teams and leagues. I'm happy with the disparity though, so maybe I'll just call it the "Dark Souls" of Hockey games.

Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-N.bin  Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-M.bin  Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-W.bin

 

 

 

Edited by von Ozbourme
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20 minutes ago, Jkline3 said:

BTW, for the sake of the Olympics it's Jieke Kailiaosi :lol:

Okay, if I didn't know that it would make the names a mess to read, I'd be tempted to use those. It's also kind of weird to try to figure out how some of those conversions were devised. Like (Ethan) Wei Ruike lost his first name? The women's team has some weird ones too.

6 hours ago, DeterminedApathy said:

Also, just out of curiosity, what is the story behind the "Team 1920" branding you use for your ROMs?

Actually not much of a story. I just liked the idea of using a pretend development company rather than a solo artist name. Also, that way if any collaborative work is used in my stuff, I can just say they were contracted to be part of the "Team". As for why that name, it's kind of a combination of influences like Team 17, and the original "Team Canada", aka my home town Winnipeg Falcons, who won gold representing Canada at the 1920 Olympics. Can't really explain why it amuses me to build up a lore around a bunch of modded games, just weird that way I guess.

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Thanks again for this rom. @BigValboskiand I are running a short tournament online.  We’re close to being done the round robin and there’s been 6 OT games already!

 

24DC9656-63B5-4676-9542-537B8083864E.jpeg

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On 2/6/2022 at 10:04 AM, BigValboski said:

Quick question, does this rom have the weight bug applied or removed?

Oooooooooh... I... think so? I'll be honest, withe the recent talk around the 3-star formulas, I was trying to also use Smoz's hack applicator for the modified base weight numbers and 1-15 scale along with the new three-star calculator, but even with the NOSE file edit, something was preventing me from opening it after all of those things were applied. However, I am pretty sure that I did the weight bug and base weight before I ran into issues [although the base weights probably didn't change anyway], but I reserve the right to be wrong.

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9 hours ago, von Ozbourme said:

Oooooooooh... I... think so? I'll be honest, withe the recent talk around the 3-star formulas, I was trying to also use Smoz's hack applicator for the modified base weight numbers and 1-15 scale along with the new three-star calculator, but even with the NOSE file edit, something was preventing me from opening it after all of those things were applied. However, I am pretty sure that I did the weight bug and base weight before I ran into issues [although the base weights probably didn't change anyway], but I reserve the right to be wrong.

oh yeah, with the "new" 32-team ROM, the base weight hack might cause problems. The goalie button hack also causes NOSE problems I think.

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On 2/8/2022 at 6:39 AM, halifax said:

Thanks again for this rom. @BigValboskiand I are running a short tournament online.  We’re close to being done the round robin and there’s been 6 OT games already!

 

24DC9656-63B5-4676-9542-537B8083864E.jpeg

Gold Medal Game tonight around 9pm EST, all who are interested should tune in here: https://www.twitch.tv/big__valboski

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19 hours ago, Tabs3121 said:

Thank you for this. Will you be updating the rom with the actual Olympic rosters? 

Yeah, I had started multiple versions, it was just that between some of the actual rosters not getting announced until very late [or getting announced and then changing last minute] and the age-old "free time" issue, I just haven't had the chance to complete the set as it were. Figured at this point I'll just throw this one out and wait until the Olympics are finished so I can use the complete stats as my base for player ratings.

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  • von Ozbourne changed the title to Olympic Hockey: Beijing 2022 [The Series]

When you are playing around in NOSE and realize this must be a good omen.
good omen.png

Anyway, just giving this a bump to highlight the completion of the series.

Because now it is a series.

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Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-N.bin  Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-M.bin  Olympic Hockey - 2022 Beijing-W.bin

Updated descriptions and download in the original post

Edited by von Ozbourme
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