Getting The Hex Of It

There are nights where I go to bed and my dreams are filled with code like you see to the left. While the computer code shown isn't exactly hexadecimal, it looks remarkably similar to that of hex code. You might be wondering why I'm writing about hex code on a hockey blog, and there's a reason for it: it's how NHL '94 is coded, and, being that's it's November 1, it's time for an update on the U SPORTS Women's Hockey version of the game that I'm trying to code. Needless to say, if I'm seeing it while I sleep, I may be in too deep!

Let's get down to business because I've been working to code things properly despite the painstakingly long process this can take at times. One of the things I wanted to code correctly, though, were the banner colours of the teams. Using their own marketing materials, each team had their uniforms updated a while back to reflect the currently colours, and now the banner colours show the same colours for each of the teams as shown in the image below!

Ignore the names and logos for now, but you can see that Alberta's green-and-yellow are shown on the right side while Calgary's red-and-yellow are on the left. Getting the banners right is one of those OCD things that would have driven me nuts had it not been shown properly, so I'm glad these worked.

As for the logos and names, the banners require some artwork to be changed and the logos have to be replaced in the game, so that's the next effort to make the start page of the game look official. That's learning another entire piece of software, but the banners is part of the job done. As it stands, every team has their respective colours on their banners.

The other thing I was working on when I had a few spare moments was the matchup screen where Ron Barr gets you set for the game. I needed to make some changes there in order to reflect the league and the players, and I think the new matchup read by Ron Barr sounds pretty accurate for the featured RSEQ matchup!

Yes, each team's arena is featured in the game, so home teams in the game will play in the arenas they call home in real life. Whether it be the historic Clare Drake Arena in Edmonton, Nipissing's North Bay Gardens, McGill's McConnell Arena, or St. FX's Keating Arena, all of the rinks for each of the teams is featured in my version of the video game! Accuracy counts, so this was a must for me.

Changing Barr's read also required setting up some default lines and fixing the pronouns shown. As you know, there are no women playing in the NHL, so I needed to change "his" to her" when it came to players being off their games, but ensuring that each team had a default lineup set was vital in getting the blurb to read correctly.

Are the lines correct in terms of who plays alongside whom? No, but that's ok too. I can watch games this season and piece together proper lines for teams to try and get the game as close to real as possible. What matters is having the blurb read correctly, and a little hex code rejigging got that working properly.

You might be saying, "Teebz, that doesn't seem like you accomplished much in the last month," and you're probably correct in that assessment. I've been busier than expected, so I haven't dedicated as much time to this project as I would have liked. In knowing that, I still managed to accomplish a few things that don't need to be addressed in the future, so that's a positive. If things settle down a bit in my life, I'll get back into the swing of working on this game.

For now, the game is still playable, the players and teams are entered and working, and the overall gameplay is solid. There's still a pile of work to be done, but we're getting closer to having a playable version of U SPORTS Women's Hockey!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!