Blood Brothers
This is a PowerPoint presentation for an assignment in which the professor asked us to modify an existing game to add a new feature or set of features to it. Blood Brothers is a concept that I created as an expansion pack to Medal of Honor: Airborne in which the players join up for a particular mission set up specifically for cooperative play. When the game starts, a Commanding Officer (CO) is chosen among the players who have joined the game. This player will now have the option of selecting where the main Landing Zone (LZ) will be on a field map based upon the list of objectives given to him or her.
The idea behind this type of cooperative play is squad-based tactics. Therefore, only the CO will have the list of mission objectives. It will be up to the CO to tell the other players (through a multiplayer headset, like the one provided for Xbox Live) what the objectives will be. When all of the players have dropped into the level (somewhere in the general vicinity of the LZ) it will be up to the CO to radio to other players their instructions.
The strategy part of this gameplay comes about in how the mission objectives have to be accomplished. First off, the objectives aren’t always the same for a particular level. Each time the map loads, a random set of objectives are selected by the game and given to the CO. Additionally, enemies can defend each objective in different ways. Sometimes the enemies are going to be careless, and at other times objectives will be heavily fortified with enemies on the alert. This will require certain players to sneak into a particular area and provide reconnaissance to the CO. While it is possible for players to simply run-and-gun their way through certain objectives, others will require more finesse (thus reinforcing the use of this squad-based mechanic).
Lastly, only the CO will be able to radio all or part of the team. The rest of the team will only be able to communicate with each other if they’re within hearing range. Voices can only be heard at a volume relative to other players (except when communicating over radio to the CO). Also, if the CO dies, another team member is randomly selected to become the new CO. At the end of the level (either through mission completion or annihilation of the entire team) a score is assigned to the team which can be viewed on a leader-board for that particular mission.
PowerPoint Presentation (PDF)