I'm taking some time to make some deep changes to Phantom to create interesting stealth scenarios in future. The feedback I've received so far from NG players has been very helpful.

I'm spending lot of time playing Volume and Desperados-3 for inspiration and to determine what exactly I like in stealth genre. There are gameplay elements in both of those games that I like and some things that I don't.

I love the rich environment of Desperados and find their story line very engaging. Volume is a stripped down stealth puzzle game, which gives tons of stealth puzzles by combining various game mechanics. Moreover Volume also needs some mastery of controls. The solutions to puzzles in Volume are mostly logical, but they also depend on how well you execute them. This is not the case in Desparados, where how skillfully you move doesn't matter towards achieving the goals. You have to observe the scenario and exploit it at your own pace. In fact that's my favorite part. I suck at controls, that's why I get frustrated with platformer games. So expect the same to see in Phantom. However Phantom won't be nearly as rich looking as Desparados, for I'm the only developer. But I would like to see that gameplay in a 2D top-down setup that you've played in current version of Phantom.

Stay tuned for more to come. Cheers!