Revenge of the Firstborn - a 3.5 SRD turn-based, Isometric RPG inspired by TOEE

[RPK]

https://www.revengeofthefirstborn.com





I’m excited to announce my new turn-based isometric RPG, based on the 3.5 SRD – Revenge of the Firstborn.

The game features crunchy combat inspired by the likes of Temple of Elemental Evil and the gold box AD&D games. The story will have two different endings, based on the decision you make throughout the game.

It features over 275 spells and 125 monsters from the SRD. In addition, it implements all of the feats and skills you can find in the tabletop version of the game.

You can create your party of 6 from one of 10 character classes and all of the races in the SRD (gnome illusionist anyone?).

It also features what I’m calling the Endless Dungeon. This is a roguelike mode, consisting of 3 different dungeons that increase in difficulty. The challenge is for your party to reach level 20, and includes the classic roguelike traits such as randomly generated dungeons layouts, randomly generated loot and randomly places monsters and a collection of mini-quests to add variety to the dungeon delving. Of course, it wouldn’t be a roguelike mode without permadeath (resurrection magic works, but if your party dies, you’re done).

You can learn more at the steam page, revengeofthefirstborn.com, or simply reply to this thread!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Does it have barbarians?

 

[Lhynn]

Well, doesnt look too shabby, wishlisted.

Keep us updated on the systems and the interface.

 

[rojay]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

 

[RPK]

Does it have barbarians?

It does, you can see all of the available character options in the character creation video, if you'd like.

 

[RPK]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Does it have barbarians?

It does, you can see all of the available character options in the character creation video, if you'd like.

 

[Lhynn]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

Do you already have a world and a story to tell?

 

[mondblut]

Do you already have a... story to tell?

Bad things happened. Brave adventurers needed. What more do you want?

 

[RPK]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

Do you already have a world and a story to tell?

I have the broad strokes of the story. A few major story beats, but it hasn't been my focus so far. I have a lot of the factions and world/setting figured out though.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

Do you already have a world and a story to tell?

Dudes already got beholders and dragons bro, at this point the story could be a single line and I'd still buy it.

 

[Lhynn]

Do you already have a... story to tell?

Bad things happened. Brave adventurers needed. What more do you want?

Dont want to be caught fetching hormone therapy pills for a troon orc. Owlcat already played that one on me once.

I have the broad strokes of the story. A few major story beats, but it hasn't been my focus so far. I have a lot of the factions and world/setting figured out though.

Just make sure things actually happen. If you want to make it simple, do, in fact if you want no story and a big world to explore, low magic age style, im game. But if you do put a story there, make interesting shit actually happen.

 

[RPK]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

Do you already have a world and a story to tell?

Dudes already got beholders and dragons bro, at this point the story could be a single line and I'd still buy it.

I am obliged to point out that that is an Eye Tyrant and any similarity to a beholder, which is IP of Wizards of the Coast is entirely coincidental.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looks interesting. When do you foresee a release?

I'm shooting for mid 2026.

the game is feature complete at this point, and I just need to make (almost an entire RPG worth of) content. I've only made a small amount of content thus far, so I don't have a great feel for how long it will really take to make the rest of it to fill out the game. I'm hoping mid 2026 is a conservative enough estimate.

Do you already have a world and a story to tell?

Dudes already got beholders and dragons bro, at this point the story could be a single line and I'd still buy it.

I am obliged to point out that that is an Eye Tyrant and any similarity to a beholder, which is IP of Wizards of the Coast is entirely coincidental.

My mistake. Lhynn, the dude doesn't have beholders, he has tyrannoculi, so I'm gonna need a story now.

 

[RPK]

Do you already have a... story to tell?

Bad things happened. Brave adventurers needed. What more do you want?

Dont want to be caught fetching hormone therapy pills for a troon orc. Owlcat already played that one on me once.

I have the broad strokes of the story. A few major story beats, but it hasn't been my focus so far. I have a lot of the factions and world/setting figured out though.

Just make sure things actually happen. If you want to make it simple, do, in fact if you want no story and a big world to explore, low magic age style, im game. But if you do put a story there, make interesting shit actually happen.

Well, in a way, it will have both of those things. I'm obviously hoping to tell an interesting story with interesting things happening, but ofc, everyone else will have to be the judge of that.

Just want to kill stuff? Try out the roguelike "Endless Dungeon". The way it came about is actually kind of interesting. I was getting tired of setting up endless variations of combat to test the combat engine, and I realize that if I could randomly generate things, it would help test scenarios I hadn't even thought of. I incorporated one of the dungeon generators from the asset store and it worked great. Figured I'd just take it to the next step and add systems to generate loot, traps and monsters, added a few "mini quests" (think things like the quest to find the inn sign or the black mushroom in the original diablo) and ended up with something I'm pretty happy to present as a feature for the game.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Just grab a tried and true TT module and make a variation of it, can’t go wrong with that.

 

[Serus]

Do not make the story very complicated or "deep" - we had those, they often suck. Possibly not too "epic" as well. Level 20 characters, uber spells and fighting with silly things usually ends not that interesting as a computer game. Fighting with orcs, trolls, medium level evil wizards and magical beasts of medium levels or their versions you chose for your game is what you need. Concentrate on what the system does best - and very high/epic level adventures are not that. A dragon as the end game boss is already high level enough.

Otherwise, looks very interesting. Good work and good luck. I will be waiting for updates.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Did I see mounted combat on that trailer?

Equip and ride a war-horse, mastering mounted combat, a rarely-seen feature in overhead RPGs.

I ques I did.

 

[almondblight]

Just make sure things actually happen. If you want to make it simple, do, in fact if you want no story and a big world to explore, low magic age style, im game. But if you do put a story there, make interesting shit actually happen.

Cliche setups are fine - actually, I've started to prefer them given how often the "clever" ideas by game designers end up being trash. Quest design is more important.

Simple quest - bandits are terrorizing the road between two townships, stopping supplies from getting through. Interesting execution - interview people in the town for hints, visit farmers in the countryside to see if they know anything, use someone with good survivor skills to see if they can track them through the wilderness, etc. Once you find their hideout out, you can rush in, but pushing through the front gate means defenders drop rocks on you from cliffs, protected archers fire at you from towers as you try to break in, etc. You can try to find a back way in through the caverns if you can (though that means fighting the creatures that live there), or try to deceive them and pretend to be farmers sending protection money, try to use spells and the environment to breach a wall, etc.

Once the quest is complete, more goods come through and the village merchants have more items to sell at cheaper prices. If you take too long, you end up finding one of the farmers houses burned down (with tracks helping you find the hideout, if your survival skill is high enough).

You get the idea. A lot of games do the opposite - they write a (bad fantasy) novel as a quest premise, and then have you run a simple FedEx quest to complete it.

The other things that go a long way are just random flavor events that the characters come across. You find a contingent of priests in the wilderness being set upon by orcs; if you decide to save them, they bless you. A cult summoning a terrible creature. A traveling bard who will sing the news to you for 5 copper. An archeological dig of a tomb of a long buried evil tyrant. Little things that aren't part of the story and don't make up full quests a lot of the time, but add flavor to the world.

 

[Litmanen]

I’m excited to announce my new turn-based isometric RPG, based on the 3.5 SRD – Revenge of the Firstborn.

The game features crunchy combat inspired by the likes of Temple of Elemental Evil and the gold box AD&D games. The story will have two different endings, based on the decision you make throughout the game.

It features over 275 spells and 125 monsters from the SRD. In addition, it implements all of the feats and skills you can find in the tabletop version of the game.

You can create your party of 6 from one of 10 character classes and all of the races in the SRD (gnome illusionist anyone?).

It also features what I’m calling the Endless Dungeon. This is a roguelike mode, consisting of 3 different dungeons that increase in difficulty. The challenge is for your party to reach level 20, and includes the classic roguelike traits such as randomly generated dungeons layouts, randomly generated loot and randomly places monsters and a collection of mini-quests to add variety to the dungeon delving. Of course, it wouldn’t be a roguelike mode without permadeath (resurrection magic works, but if your party dies, you’re done).

You can wishlist the game at


You can learn more at the steam page, revengeofthefirstborn.com, or simply reply to this thread!

I've seen also that you created a dedicatedd site and there are several images with the UI too. Looks nice.

Since you didn't tell us about the site, is it "maintained" and update or we shouldn't care about those alpha-images?

Site

 

[Gorgiy]

Looks good, wishlisted. Good advice has already been given above, I in turn would advise paying attention to the battles - eliminate trash battles, it is better to have fewer battles, but they will be interesting and intense, let there be no random clashes. You can find a lot of useful information in this video: https://youtu.be/jcyWeFr-B0Q?si=A4Tm2x6Kcqc8sRko. In addition, it is better to have a shorter campaign - 35 hours maximum, but well done from start to finish, than a long and uneven one.

 

[jaekl]

Will there be poc and LGBTQ+ representation?

 

[Lhynn]

Cliche setups are fine - actually

Yeah, but Im not talking about that. In a whole lot of stories nothing actually happens, nothing ever changes.

A good example of this is pillars 1, fuck all happens in all your playtime, you just go through the motions. A story, even a simple story, should be filled with twists, nothing should ever be as simple as doing it.

 

[Tyranicon]

Looks pretty damn good, level 20 and it's feature complete?

 

[Infinitron]

Older videos here: https://www.youtube.com/@RotFB/videos