Hold-to-crouch and hold-to-sprint options would be appreciated QOL features since those two stateful modifiers have effect over the game's stealth system. Sprinting is currently a little cumbersome because it's not entirely clear for how long the PC has to stop moving in order to exit the sprint state. This can lead to the PC sprinting when it is not intended for them to do so.

Just got the first release candidate.

Thankfully I haven't run into any major bugs or anything like that, so most of this probably isn't too urgent.

Bugs and Technical Issues:

• High windows are exploitable because enemies often can't deal with players crouching in them. This might also apply to other high locations NPCs can't path to and are high enough to be outside their visual range, but not sure. They just keep helplessly clustering under their location. See screenshot for example: http://i.imgur.com/QOlMIL9.jpg
• Trees in The Howl may occasionally get NPCs stuck. It's kind of rare, but it can happen. See screenshot for example: http://i.imgur.com/XSsXNoB.jpg

Balance and Gameplay Issues:

• Changing ammo is slow once you get a third ammo type. Maybe there should be a "previous ammo" key that way you wouldn't have to switch more than once (assuming there's always 3).
  
• In my opinion the Katanas are overpowered with dealing so much damage and having such reach. I actually stopped using these because they made the game less fun for me. I guess other players may disagree with this however.
• Old Town levels can sometimes come out really long. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does it can be noticeable. I suspect it might have something to do with the "Station" area of this level but I'm not entirely sure.
• Enemies sometimes spawn too close to the player, like around corners the player already checked.

Other Suggestions:

• Maybe have a listing of "plot events" somewhere, similar to the Yearbook but available before the end. Maybe a "news board" in the coffee shop.

There should be a way to see researched weaknesses without talking to your researcher.

Ok, unfortunately there does seem to be a more common gameplay issue related to the "high window" issue from my previous post.

Right now, melee enemies have no way of dealing with players on top of furniture or in spots they can't path to in general. Basically if you are sitting on top of a table or something the minions just get stuck near you with no way to respond, and you can just pick them off from safety. It looks really broken to be clearly visible in the same room as an enemy and for them to be pretty much unable to respond because you're standing on top of something.

Obviously elite vampires don't have this problem as bad as they can throw fireballs, but enemies like Minions (and possibly both of the "specials" though haven't had a chance to try it with them yet) are susceptible to this.

I guess as a possible solution, The Dark Mod (http://www.thedarkmod.com/) used to have this exact same problem with sword-wielding guards in that they'd be left with no reasonable options if they were trying to attack a player in a spot they couldn't path to. The solution that was implemented there was to give all melee NPCs a last resort low-damage range attack that they'd only use if they saw a player in a position they couldn't path to, which in that case was throwing small rocks. The rocks do very little damage and aren't anywhere near as good as "proper" ranged attack, but they reduce the awkwardness of the situation a lot and mean the player can't just sit there and eat rocks as long as they wanted.

I'd like to be able to bind Mouse Buttons 4 and 5 (SDL_BUTTON_X1, SDL_BUTTON_X2), at least on Linux that's doesn't seem possible at the moment.

Oh by the way, SDL_BUTTON_X1/2 need SDL2 2.0.4 or newer to work correctly on Linux, you're shipping 2.0.3 so you may wanna upgrade that (2.0.4 also has lots of other bugfixes, so upgrading is a good idea even if you choose not to support these buttons).

I tested SlayerShock with 2.0.4 and the buttons didn't work with that either, so I guess it's not supported by your code yet.

I've avoided SDL2 2.0.4 because (at least the last time I checked) it's only available as x86_64 on OS X, and Slayer Shock is built for 32-bit on all platforms.

That being said, it looks like the headers for SDL 2.0.3 do support the X1/X2 mouse buttons, and I've made the appropriate changes for that; but I don't actually own a 5-button mouse I can test with, so that'll be an experimental change whenever it comes out.

I just got to Gen2 on my latest run and again I notice that it's still a LOT better than Gen1 in terms of balance.

I know I've voiced this opinion before, but I still really think Gen1 needs a difficulty increase. I can understand trying to allow new players room to get used to the game, but most players and reviewers are only ever going to play Gen1 Normal which makes the enemies too weak for a lot of the gameplay to really work.

As it is, I think this is going to attract a some of criticism about enemies being pushovers and most of the weapons/gadgets being completely unnecessary.

That said, if you're really set on keeping the current difficulty curve, then consider maybe adding a "skip Gen1" option as a new game option.

SDL 2.0.5 is supposed to be released soonish - I hope they provide OSX 32bit binaries again (as far as I know not providing them for 2.0.4 was an oversight). Otherwise you could build it yourself on OSX, it shouldn't be hard with the provided XCode project.

Anyway, thanks for adding X1/X2 support, looking forward to that experimental update (I'd like to bind melee shove to one of them) :-)

Sometimes I get crashes (segfaults) on Linux.

So I ran the game in gdb, here's part of the backtrace:

(gdb) bt
#0 0x0823e7d0 in VampWorld::ClipPortal(VampWorld::SSectorPortal const&, View const&, Plane const&, Matrix const&, SRect const&, SRect&) const ()
#1 0x082424b1 in VampWorld::GatherVisibleSectors(View const&, Plane const&, unsigned int, SRect const&, Array<unsigned int>&, unsigned int) const ()
#2 0x08242500 in VampWorld::GatherVisibleSectors(View const&, Plane const&, unsigned int, SRect const&, Array<unsigned int>&, unsigned int) const ()
#3 0x08242500 in VampWorld::GatherVisibleSectors(View const&, Plane const&, unsigned int, SRect const&, Array<unsigned int>&, unsigned int) const ()

It goes on like that forever (>6500 stack frames) - apparently some kind of endless recursion?

By the way: In the Steam devtest Beta version, Mouse Buttons 4 and 5 work and I didn't get anymore crashes - thanks! :-)

It's pretty hard now, though. Before I just killed everything that moves, now I gotta play quite stealthy (in gen2).

I think it would be really, really cool if there was a better way to get rid of the HUD(as to have a more compelling atmosphere. Here's my basic idea:

Create a mode where you have a phone, one that can check the minimap, your health, the ammunition, the objectives, the dust you have. Pretty much every function of the HUD would be on the phone, but the game world is still active when you use it, and it would be on the scroll wheel(though wouldn't take up a weapon space).

I think this would push the game to the next level, like the hud-less mode in the metro games, but would also make playing hud free on expert difficulty an enjoyable experience.