I'm working on this one (on and off) since december 2011. There isn't much real game play ATM, which is why there isn't any downloadable demo yet. However, i can show some random screen shot and a video. It's supposed to be somehow similar to the Elder Scrolls series in gameplay...but simplified to work well on touch devices.

I'm still undecided about combat. I wanted real time combat first, but i'm not so sure now, because a turn based combat might be better on a touch device. Any opinions on that topic would be greatly appreciated!

Anyway, here's a screen shot...




And here's the latest video...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/FUXsjI4AXu8?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/FUXsjI4AXu8?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;start=</a>

Impressive!  Good stuff.  Definitely keep us posted on it's progress.  I understand the problem however with combat interaction on a mobile device.  I don't know how old you are but "back in the day" controllers were simple, much like the mobile devices of today.  I'd recommend doing what we did then and combine a series of movements in one or two clicks.  It does remove some interaction with the end user but if done correctly can be quite rewarding.

Very cool. I never saw any loading pauses as you wandered the world (unless I missed them).

I think a simple diablo style click-to-kill  combat system would be good.
Or maybe the camera could zoom out to a top down view and then you could more easily control where the player should move.

What feature took the longest time to program?

As I am still new to this type of game programming (used tools like RPGMaker2000 in the past) and still try to dig my way to the core of 3D game programming, I am really fascinated by your game. It looks really impressive! It doesn't look like one of those typical "selfmade" games.

Very impressive.
But please - even if it's for mobile devices - don't make it turn-based. Turn based is actually okey, but not for this type of games. Not in an Elder-Scrolls like game.

I agree with CommanderKeith, Add a button for an attack. where the player does some swings and then jumps a step back again. That'd reduce the gameplay difficulty hopefully. But most important: Let the player be able to walk at any moment.

And will this also come to desktop? That would be cool, even if I have a mobile device, it's somehow more relaxing to play on the pc and it's also easier, since you have to lay down your phone somewhere, else you've only got one hand for touch.

If there were any, i would have edited them for the video... But as long as you move around in the wilderness, there are no loading pauses anyway. If you enter a dungeon, it loads some data and shows a simple loading screen for a few seconds.

I'm trying to avoid showing the player's character, because i don't have one to keep things simple. So this isn't really an option.

...hard to tell. Leaving aside the 3d engine itself, maybe the grass patches. It actually didn't take that long to implement them, but it took me some time to figure out how to do it efficiently. All my ideas either consumed too much memory, too much cpu or both. Then suddenly i had this inspiration and implemented it in maybe two hours.

I've really no idea. There's no real game play in it ATM. You can run around, pick some flowers and drop and collect items...there's no combat, no quest system... I'm hoping to have something playable within 2013.

Gamepads...i never thought about it. I'll consider it though. Concerning game play...i hope so, too. I've some ideas, i have some books on that topic and this is my second rpg (the former one was for the Amiga 20 years ago...), so i hope to be able to pull it off.

That's what i thought initially, but then i tried some rpg and rpg like games on mobile devices and just didn't like the controls at all. Well, we'll see....i guess i have to try some things to see what works best.

Maybe. I'm using a desktop version for faster development, but it lacks some features (like sound) and my main focus is on the mobile version. Making a real desktop version would allow for increased detail though:

If you are looking for control ideas, Delver is my favorite game for android as it is a first-person dungeon crawler (slightly similar gameplay) and has a very nicely done control system for combat, with melee being a simple click per hit, and the distance combat being more target-based.. Hope to see more progress on this game, though!

You could make the bottom left corner carry the 'run' and 'attack' buttons, and make the character walk towards wherever they press their finger on the screen. Run button could toggle between /look/walk/run or whatever. quick tap on the screen would also count as an attack or interacting with an object (as it is now). Just a few ideas, but looks great so far!

Nice progress. Foliage look really good.

How is the performance? If there is any left try add some form of shadows. New devices should handle hardware pcf filtered shadow maps really well.(at lest on iOs side of world).
Is there any kind of lighting?

Performance is between 15 and 50 fps on a Nexus S, 33 and 60 fps on a Nexus 7 and 35 and 60 fps on a Galaxy Note. I'm not going to add shadow mapping anytime soon, because i want to focus on the game instead.
Lighting in outdoor scenes is simple vertex lighting (had per pixel lighting once, but it was much slower and didn't look that much better). In the dungeon, it's parallax mapping used for the first light source (which is the player) and vertex lighting for the torches.

Yeah, homing missiles arent really a good simulation for bows.

Gears of war 2 had one of the best in-game bows imo.. You would hold down the fire button and the bow would tension, giving a prediction of the arc of the arrow. You would then release the bow when the path intersected the target. I've been thinking for a while that a ghostly prediction would be a good ranger spell or something. Oblivion and skyrim both have similar methods though you are dependent on waiting for the draw.

One thing which might be interesting would be a slider on the right hand side that acts a little like a pinball machine.. If you drag the slider down towards you and let go.. That would be equivalent to tensioning the string and releasing. You can also leave the bow tensioned at a point if you are waiting to shoot.

Golf games have a variety of power-related controls you might prefer more. Mario golf has a power slider and the power meter moves between weak and powerful (which would likely be very frustrating!)

For melee I was always a fan of the daggerfall drag mouse to drag sword in a direction, though dont know whether that would be as good on a tablet as it might get in the way of the moving controls during a fight.

 
Looks really nice and professional!
Can't wait to try it.

There is something very comforting about the graphical style of this one

Cheers,

Kev