Operation Snow Leopard

**Operation Snow Leopard** (stylized as Operation: Snow Leopard and known in early phases as Project Avalanche) is a game created by Blue Dragon Studios. It differs from the BlastGen series, being a squad based, singleplayer or multiplayer game. As the name suggests, the enemies of this game are the titular snow leopards. The game was largely inspired by Changed, though it puts its own little twist on it. While the game bombed initially, it gained popularity upon the inception of co-op and PvP multiplayer modes, and even spawned a sequel, Operation Latex.

## Overview

The idea of Operation Snow Leopard came when Travis played Changed for the first time. He wanted to create a similar game and used the snow leopards from the game as enemies, but tried not to outright copy it. The game is played from a first person perspective and is played with a 4 player team, which consists of either AI or players, depending on the mode. The plot was created entirely by Theo, but Travis himself pitched a few ideas as well. When it was first released, it was known as Project Avalanche and was in early testing. The game was unpopular with most testers scolding Travis for his lack of creativity, with some requesting he add multiplayer. Eventually, Travis would add cooperative multiplayer and a PvP mode, which boosted the game's popularity somewhat. The game is still active to this day, and is available alongside its sequel, Operation Latex.

## Plot

### Single Player

The player plays through the eyes of an unknown elite special forces soldier, though it is implied he/she is a mercenary. The soldier is dispatched alongside three other soldiers to a facility that reportedly went dark and were ordered to investigate it, though didn't know the dangers beforehand. Their commander, Wesley, guides them and gives them orders via radio. However, contact with Wesley is lost once they get deeper into the facility. The team then encounters strange humanoid, animalistic creatures, with one of the soldiers questioning what he just saw. The creatures end up being aggressive and attempt to attack the team, with them firing at them and killing them in self defense. One of the soldiers inspects the corpse and tells the others that these are bipedal snow leopards and must have been created by the lab. He then takes out a swab and swabs the corpse and puts it in a tube, then puts it in his pocket in order to test its DNA later.

As they proceed, they are ambushed by more snow leopards and one of the soldiers is killed or saved depending on the player's actions. One soldier becomes terrified, and asks the player character if they still have time to leave, to which another soldier tells him to remain silent and not question the mission directive. They then come across a room with test chambers, with some of the subjects banging on the glass. One of the soldiers goes to release one of them but is stopped by another soldier, who berates him for trying to make more enemies. One of the subjects manages to escape from their chamber, but acts passive toward the team. They are nevertheless killed by the player or another soldier depending on the player's actions. They notice test tubes and a beaker containing some sort of liquid, and one of the soldiers takes one of the test tubes and puts it in their pocket. As they leave, they are again ambushed and one of the soldiers is killed or saved. One of the soldiers says that he hears a strange voice that sounds like a calming feminine voice, to which the other soldier tells him to ignore it and to not get distracted. The sound grows closer until they eventually come across where the voice was coming from; a female snow leopard. It doesn't act hostile to the team, and one of the soldiers goes up to it, but it suddenly attacks and kills him. This can be prevented by killing it before this interaction occurs. If there is another soldier left at this point, he will comment on the other's stupidity. The team then hears echoes across the facility that sound like the same voice. They decide to investigate them and eventually find the source of the echoes; more female snow leopards. Unlike the previous one, these snow leopards are seemingly friendly and will offer to hug the player. However, this is actually a ruse as if the player goes up to one, it will instead strangle the player until he is unconscious, though this can quickly be prevented by pressing the interact button repeatedly, doing so will make the player pull out their pistol and execute the snow leopard with a shot to the head. Any remaining soldiers will kill the remaining snow leopards in the area.