How to: Add New Menu Items to Game Setup - GENS

[McMarkis]

How to: Add Custom Menu Items to the Game Setup Screen

v1.0 (2025 04 29)

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Info:

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I've put together a GitHub repo showing how to add custom menu items to the game setup screen in NHL '94. Using this method, I’ve created five example patches, all included in the repo.

• Fake Shot (New functionality)
• Weight Bug (Chaos 120 decimal patch)
• 5 Minutes, 99 Min OT to Period Lengths
• Fighting - (Coming Soon)
• Multi Menu, with everything combined

You’ll also find a master "multi menu" example that demonstrates how to combine multiple patches into a single ROM. This approach works with custom ROMs too—you'll just need to update the insertion RAM address to match your rom.

This is more of an advanced level patch geared towards ROM modders. It allows you to edit the source code of these patches to change the behavior as well. Any questions please drop in the forum and we will keep this updated and make improvements over time. We can probably wrap a User Interface tool around these patches in the future, but I wanted to get it out now so people could start using it, and provide feedback.

Patch:

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I recommend visiting the GitHub repository and checking out the README. It provides details on all the patches I've created using this method.

Here is the direct link to download the zip package containing all the examples. Each folder in the zip package has a README.md file with instructions.
 

Version Notes

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• v1.0 Initial Release.

Known Issues

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• In Demo Mode, Goalie Control + User Record options are editable, but should not be.

Edited April 29, 2025 by McMarkis
Added some links

[Sauce]

Nice work @McMarkis!

[77]

have you guys already done a shootout overtime like real NHL?

i dont watch hockey anymore... is that still a thing?

[slapshot67]

This game keeps getting better, excellent work😀

[Mr. T]

Amazing ! This is wonderful. 

[AdamCatalyst]

oh man, @McMarkis! I SO wanted to try this myself this summer. THANK-YOU!

[Brodeur30]

Thank you for this! I managed to patch a few roms with the Fake Shot and I'm so impressed. Complete with a sound effect when you do the fake, just brilliant. It's interesting how you coded the Fake Shot to work and how it compares to doing a similar B button cancel to the A button. The difference being you don't transition to a pass when pressing B with your Fake Shot. It's encouraging to see how you've managed to implement this Fake Shot, and your system of adding Menu options is fabulous. This is really well designed and makes it a lot easier to make and apply advanced rom patches. I would be very interested to hear more about what inspired you to create this patching engine and specifically to implement a Fake Shot. Well done, it is very rewarding to do Fake Shots in-game, and I would be very interested to make other kinds of adjustments to the control scheme.

Edited February 6 by Brodeur30

[McMarkis]

On 2/5/2026 at 8:18 PM, Brodeur30 said:

 I would be very interested to hear more about what inspired you to create this patching engine and specifically to implement a Fake Shot. Well done, it is very rewarding to do Fake Shots in-game, and I would be very interested to make other kinds of adjustments to the control scheme.

Hey @Brodeur30,

Thanks for the kind words! The idea for the patching engine grew out of some earlier work I was doing on the SNES NHL ’94 disassembly using DiztinGUIsh and ASAR, which lets you modify assembly and rebuild the ROM.

Then in 2024 when the NHL Hockey (’92) source code surfaced, I spent some time figuring out how to compile it with the SN 68k Genesis compiler so we could better understand how the original game worked.

While making a few NHL ’94 Genesis mods, I noticed most patches were still being shared as raw hex edits. Around the same time Chaos was disassembling the 94' ROM in IDA Pro, which made me think it would be much easier if we could apply patches directly in assembly instead of hex. The patching engine grew out of that idea, and I first used it for things like the Fake Shot, menu tweaks, and then to help with Chaos’ fighting patch.

The Fake Shot came from an idea someone posted in the discord, I first tired it in the NHL 92 Source code and then ported it over to 94.

Anyway, that’s the long answer to a short question and probably more than anyone ever wanted to know about how a fake shot ended up in a 30-year-old hockey game 😄

[Prince of WALES]

I'm interested in learning how the assembler works and how to use it. Is there a guide on how to use it to add menu items and/or take away items? I used to use lunar ips back in the day but this seems more complex. I looked on chaos's github page that someone linked to me, but I'm not sure how to use the program. I'd love to learn how to do all this stuff on my own so I don't have to bother people all the time lol.