VN - Ren'Py - New Antioch [R0.5] [TheRedMyst]

Pretty early, but really really good game so far. The setting is fascinating and quite unique, the caracter designs are on point. The writing is really good too and the future possibilities seem almost endless at this point. Very little lewd scenes as of right now but the dev has already shown he understands the value of building it up rather than going straight for easy gratuitous sex scenes. Genuinely one of the best new games i've played in a while, can't wait to see how it's going to go !

awesome game. beautiful unique renders. wonderful unique models. awesome story. great gameplay.

this has just jumped to being one of my most favourites. really looking forward to updates.

5-stars is not easily given by me. you've earned it though. i urge anyone who can to help out the dev.

also amazing mix of sci-fi and medieval and dystopian setting. however, to my liking as it is no NTR or sharing.

boring; there is meaningless text at the moment. I skipped almost everything.
there is no male domination in this game at the moment (or I skipped it)

Visuals: Solid render and animations. Character models and backgrounds look good for the most part.

Story: Male power fantasy with a hodge podge of tropes thrown in that's sometimes good with the lore and intrigue, but also sometimes contrived and get a little cringe at times.

1. It's post apocalyptic and everyone uses phrases from the Roman empire and latin, but people also play dungeons and dragons.
2. They use swords and arrows for this macho gladiator combat stuff and there's somehow magic, but there's also high tech computers and security cameras and video games. No guns though, because it'd make the sword and shield stuff redundant I guess.
3. There's some disease that affected the fertility of the entire world, making every man's penis extra extra small. But the MC's a special individual and has a huge penis and super fertility!...And he's a DnD pro and has his own Dungeon Master screen!

UI, music, presentation: Also solid.

3.5/5 stars

very enjoyable visual novel, from a ok, this makes as much sense as any other scientific theory in the world and it's written in an engaging and sometimes humorous manner perspective. there's plenty of political intrigue, and plenty of chance to prove yourself (the MC) as the dominant macho type you may well be... but for now...

it needs sex scenes - that's my only real complaint. there's one BJ so far (oral "sex"), and that's as close to sexual interactions with other characters as the entire content gets thus far. calling it a slow burn implies it burns, which for now isn't true. it looks like it's on the way there... but so far I consider all but the last 10 to 15 minutes of play time more of a prologue, with chapter one of what I hope will be an amazing VN (with sex scenes) starting now.

looking forward to more to see if that plays out.

Very impressed. Narrative and concept are both quite sophisticated. Sexual content, thus far, is mostly implied rather than immediate. 7/10 for graphics - good without being brilliant.

Looking forward to the next update.

TLDR, review as of R0.3, a mixed bag with both good and bad.

Pros

• Male cast has diverse looks.
  
  
• MC actually good looking. However, having his hair get cut was a mistake, he looks less Mad Max and more modern yuppy youth now.
  
  
• MC taller than females and with a decent muscle tone, even has hair on his chest. A low bar many game cannot clear, especially Daz 3D games. That said, he could have been made even bigger, considering he's supposed to be a really strong and tough fighter.
  
  
• Visually polished.
  
  
• Diverse and mostly fitting musical score and sound effects.
  
  
• Proper english.
  
  
• Good dialogue.
  
  
• Deep worldbuilding that isn't openly moronic for the most part (see cons below).
  
  
• Choices that matter (but there's a big but, see below).
  
  
• Variety of body types of LIs.
  
  
• Variety of ages of LIs.
  
  
• Perverted LI. One of the LIs is masturbating to a live show of semi-nude (male) prisoners fighting each other to death. Uncommon for LIs to be so evily perverted.
  
  
• MC can kill a good looking woman in a gladitorial fight. In a world where the MC kills a lot of people, it's nice that not every (attractive) woman is spared the sword. Makes it more realistic.

Cons

• Ugly LIs. I guess this is kind of subjective, but of the five LIs, I only found one had a really attractive face (the solar seer). The empress/mother and the doctor have downright ugly faces in my opinion and I'm more and more coming down on sida that blonde daughter is also ugly. In general, they have too big mouth/lips, eyes and chin and too small/flat/pixie noses and the empress/mother looks like a homeless alcoholic in the face). That is not a common problem in porn games. Kind of ironic that many of the male characters look so much better, as it's usually the other way around. Maybe the dev is a woman...?
  
  
• Silly national characteristics. Having the main powerfaction style themselves as Neo-romans, is ok, I can see that actually hapening. Having northerners look like a ridiculous hollywood version of Vikings with faux Scandinavian names to boot is not, and it doesn't get better when you realise that southerners are subsaharan Africans and easterners are Chinese/east asian. Does the Neo-roman empire span the entire Euroasian continent, as well as Africa, or how did they pull that off? Not that this matters hugely in your average porn game, but this game obviously want to take itself very seriously when it comes to background, story and lore, so it shouldn't contain such sillyness.
  
  
• Silly plot points. Like when the MC inadvertently foils an assassination plot by inviting his would be assassin to a session of Dungeons and Dragons. As you do when you find yourself with what you think is a prostitute payed for by your adoptive brother (fucking said prostitute is of course out of the question for mister post apocalyptical boy scout). And of course, how could the would be assassin say no and how could she be anything other than absolutely wowed by playing Dungeons and Dragons? Not to mention, big deadly fighter in a post apocalyptical future where they don't even have electricity in the homes where he lives is playing role playing games...
  
  Or when a robber who just been aprehended mid-crime by a praetorian guard arrogantly starts mouthing off about his rights, only for the praetorian to kill him there and then. As if anyone living in a post apocalyptical roman empire would believe they had "rights" after having been caught red handed robbing someone at knife-point...
  
  
• Low sex to time ratio. You have to play for an hour or two before you get to your first sex scene, kind off, and then it's just groping and a vision/dream on top off that, not really sex. And it doesn't get much better after that either.
  
  
• Mind reading and frequent and long scenes where the MC isn't present (more than half of the game doesn't have the MC in it), whereby the player gets to know secret plot points the MC has no idea about and gets to know many characters intimately, including their real motives and secrets no one else knows about, though the MC never even met them. Fucks with first person immersion, drags out the game (see low sex to time ratio above) and will likely lead to the player making choices he/she maybe wouldn't do if they only had the same knowledge as the MC.
  
  
• Stunted choices. While there certainly are choices, they are not that many and in a number of situations it feels as if there should be a choice, but there is none. Furthermore, if you pop open the hood of the game, you'll find that for most of the time, playing the boy scout is the right thing to do, at least in how to treat the ladies. But this is still early, so that might change.
  
  
• Chaste MC. As mentioned above, there are a couple of situations where it feels like choices are missing, and a big part of that are scenes with LIs/potential LIs where the MC doesn't try to get into the panties of the LIs despite having an opening of sorts, instead the game forces the boy scout route. Particularly annoying if you're playing the MC as dominant. In that I also include a blow job scene where the player is not given the option to push the womans head down the MCs cock. However, towards the end we actually get a choice to push for a sex scene and a more assertive/dominant approach, so maybe it will change as the game progresses.
  
  
• Facial expressions a bit to much. Sometimes goes into uncanny valley.
  
  
• Stupid/evil men, compentent/good women. Almost all men except the MC are either stupid, pathethic and/or morally flawed, whereas the female LIs in comparrison are very compentent and generally more morally pure. It's especially annoying because some of the pathethic/deviant men are the boyfriends/brothers/sons to the LIs, which just makes the discrepancies more grating. Once more, however, it's quite early and at least one of the LIs shows signs of having a darker side, though she seems kind of repentant, and another might be devoloping it, so who knows what the future will bring?

This is a good one

I like the premise of the 'ancient tech' in a world millennia away from when it was used (or whatever many years)

the renders are good, and a major + for me is that the dev did not go 'cookie cutter' goddess type females

Looking forward to see much more of this story

This is for v0.3
The game has been fairly consistent throughout it's releases but if something changes dramatically, I will update the review.



The setting:

Years after a Great Collapse of civilization, humanity exists in a retropunk state, under medieval-inspired systems. Those higher in the hierachy have access to impressive technology even if they can't replicate it, reverse engineer it or use it to to it's fullest extend. The rest live in communities that depending on the location may seem inspired by Roman or early European standards. The big city looks like something you'd see in the Gladiator, while the villages something out of the Witcher or the Vikings TV Series.

It also features underground vaults, remniscient of the Fallout franchise, where the bulk of technology is stored.

While I didn't exactly understand the concept, it seems to exist 2 types of humans. Normal ones and mutants. Additionally the mutants seem to be manufactored in the vaults or through some other faction that I can't explain at this moment. Mutants are improved humans, to various degrees and they seem to be rare. Additionally there exist monsters called Dwellers, that look like ghouls/zombies and seem to be feral without the capacity for communication.

Currently, a virus has infected the entire population, causing fertility in women and low testosterone in men, which creates a "coming apocalypse" scenario unless a solution is found. This solution exists in the form of the protagonist who is a mutant with expansive mutations, probably created as the solution to the problem by some secretive party. While infected, his body seems to be resistant to the virus, leaving open multiple scenarios for resolution, like becoming the ultimate breeder or giving his blood to scientists to synthesize a cure.

The setting features magic, although it seems to be rare. One of the main girls is a sun seer, with an ability which sounds like absorbing the power of the sun to power spells like teleportation, visions and firebased attacks.

I think the Fallout inspiration is very clear. From the setting to certain dialogue with one of the characters.

The society:

There exist different states with their ruling systems. The ruling classes are well off while the rest depend on their station. Currently there exist a lot of intrigue coming from the leaders of satellite societies and important village who try to gain power in expense of the current ruling class. In the relevant geographic location, the current leader is the Imperatrix, the wife of the former Imperator who died. The reasons for his death seem to be suspect, with a lot of people thinking that his wife poisoned him. He seemed like a harsh ruler, interested in progress in the expense of his people and the Imperatrix is seen as a weaker and sneakier ruler.

Another prominent faction is Cerberus. It's not clear if it's a man or an organization, but they seem ruthless and willing to fan the flames of rebellion with the intent to gain power for themselves.
Lastly we have the leaders of important locations, like the one the Protagonist was raised in. They exist in close proximity to places with high technological significance which gives them power.

The Crown is weary of these factions and she seems to have taken steps to antagonize them, but we don't know the extend of these steps and the events happening in the start of the game are confusing and obfuscated with lies and intrigue.

The rest of the people are remniscient of standard Medieval and Roman tropes. There exists slavery, Inns and a Colliseum. The commoners work as farmers, fishermen, miners, tailors, innkeepers, traveling merchants and mercenaries. The jobs which are specific to this setting are speculators and technologists. The former are scavengers of technology, while the latter try to make sense of the scavenged technology.

Scientists seem to be rare and "faction" based although I could be wrong. However the protagonist's circumstances seem to point that way.
There also seems to be a notion that "good and strong" men aren't that numerous. I'm not exactly how it looks in general, but there are a few scenes that make it look like the majority of them are small and weak, probably due to the lack of testosterone. You will hear a lot of whining about it and you will see men with unimpressive stature, but we will have to see more to get a clearer picture.

The story and the protagonist:

While his name and monicer are customizable, the story follows Mateo the "Dreadwolf", a speculator who seemingly lost his parents as a baby and doesn't have memories of them and is told that he inherited his moniker from his father, who was very similar in both stature and viciousness in combat. He was raised as the adopted son of the "Patrius" of Aqua Palma, a relatively small port town near what seems to have a significant geostrategic location, due to it's proximity to a mine. He is an impressively built man, an exceptional and cunning warrior with a stoic and dominant personality. He is a well liked person in the community, opinionated with an obvious regard for the common folk and while not very savvy, he seems to be of above average intelligence although that interpretation depends a bit on how you view the "tips" given in the minigames (more on that later).

He seems to be in a very special predicament. It is revealed that he is a mutant with unusually extensive mutations, but he himself had no idea. The fact that he is a mutant makes it seem like he was lied to by the Patrius about his parents because mutants are created in a lab (the specifics elude me at this time). He is a known figure to the ruling class and his status as a renowned warrior makes them view him as a significant threat in case of a rebellion.

The story starts with the Dreadwolf procuring a technological relic from a mine and delivering it to the Patrius' son, Dante, who is technologist. Some time after, an assassin sent by the Imperatrix tries to kill him and retrieve the relic, but due to his winning personality she rethinks her mission and lets him live. She proceeds to steal the relic and the coming day we also learn that the Patrius was assassinated, which prompts Dante to take the reigns of the village and send Dreadwolf to the capital in an undercover mission to destroy the ruling class (who he blames for his father's death) from within.

The dev controls the pacing in a very interesting way, making the players think of the next action instead of taking a step back and thinking about what is happening. Even if the player spots that some things don't line up as they should, they quickly forget about it because the next encounter is right around the corner. The presentation follows multiple points of views, unrelated to the protagonist, and keep the reader up to date with what is happening, although it hides the "why" of things.

The characters:

Click the spoiler for a small description of the major characters. All mentioned females are potential LIs.

Patrius: The leader of Aqua Palma who adopted the protagonist. He is a capable and ruthless leader and people around him think that he is at the edge of madness. He is assassinated early in the game.
Dante: The son of Patrius who assumes leadership after his death. A mostly unsuccesful techonologist, he has a specific brand of humor and self confidence issues, having been raised under his father's shadow with huge expectations. He sends Dreadwolf to the capital although his reasoning is a bit suspect.
Gaius: The leader of the Praetorian Guard. A level-headed and intelligent man who has some history with Dreadwolf.
Enzo: The adopted son of the Imperatrix. A vicious and petty man who has a huge opinion of himself. He is quite a popular character.
Cicero: A senator who seem to be more savvy and cunning than the others. It's obvious that he has some machinations and Enzo is part of his plans.
Cerberus: Either a man or a shadow organization (unclear at this point), who is the enemy of the Imperatrix. (I wouldn't be surprised if Cicero and Cerberus are related, although there is no definitive proof at this point)
Faustina: The Imperatrix and the wife of the late Imperator. Most think her a harsh woman although it's probable that it's her front, to project a strong image. There is a rumor that she poisoned her husband. She wants her own child.
Luciana: Adopted daughter of the Imperatrix, she is assumed to be the best technologist in the world, has serious self confidence issues and tries hard to stay out of her mother's shadow. She is in a relationship with Milena's brother, who causes huge problems for her, but despite that she tries to support him claiming that it's her duty.
Aquila: Recently adopted daughter of the Imperatrix. She seems like she was recently adopted, is kept a secret and she wants to prove herself to her mother. She is the assassin sent to kill Dreadwolf and steal the relic.
Milena: A biomedical doctor who leads the efforts of the capital to combat the virus. An intelligent, sexually open but also frustrated woman who enjoys bloodsports and is a fairly good conversationalist. She spent a lot of time under the previous Imperator, attempting to find a cure through mostly unsavory practices.
Safiya: A sorceress introduced in the beginning as a mercenary and is currently imprisoned in the capital. She is quick to anger and has bitch defenses but she is also sultry and attempts to help the protagonist win in the arena in exchange for him asking for a pardon in her behalf.

Disclaimer: The adoption angle is a bit murky at this point because it seems that in this setting, it's possible to create humans completely artificially. We know that Luciana and Enzo do not share Faustina's DNA because we are told exactly that, but it's also possible that they were commisioned instead of being adopted through the system like in real life.


Visuals and Audio:

Not much to say about the visuals other than they are well made. High quality renders, I find the girls beautiful and unique, the combat scenes are impactful and the backgrounds have a lot of detail and good lighting. The animations are scarce but they have good detail, I didn't notice any clipping although there exists some jerky movement.

I found the audio very uninspired. It's good that it has music but I don't feel it's appropriate for the scenes. Ambience is way too cheerful when the background is bleak and dark, the combat music is also cheerful and upbeat, it fails to create tension during dramatic moments. Still, better than nothing, but a missed opportunity nonetheless.

Sexual Content:

Currently it's scarce but it's fairly good. Safiya is guarded but the protagonist is too attractive and manages to break her walls, playing a game of dominance. Milena is shown to masturbate watching the protagonist fight in the arena, and later (if you have enough points with her), she is "forced" to blow him. Luciana also has a scene where she tries to relieve some frustration in the shower, and Aquila watches the protagonist taking a shower.

It's obviously a slow burn but it's tasteful and considering who MC is, we can expect them to be unable to walk straight in the near future.

Gameplay:

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I have a lot of peeves with gameplay in Visual Novels because a lot of them give you choices that are pretty much arbitrary. This VN gives you a very specific framework to guide your choices. It uses both a hint panel and dialogue based hints, expects you to pay attention and it's consistent.

For example:
Early in the game you have a debate with Dante. A panel exists that gives you some information about his character and the results of the choices are consistent. They are not obvious, and if you are not very proficient in english you may have more trouble than intented, but the design is really good.

During the prison segment, you get to fight in a pit to have a chance at claiming your freedom. Again you have a panel with hints on each fight. Some hints are more obvious than the other, but the results are consistent with the expectations. Some confusion is natural, but eventually you will get the rythm of the game and make better choices.

Later you fight as a Gladiator, and your "trainer" gives you specific tips that you have to follow. If you do things right you will have a lot of control over the result.


Closing comments:

A very well made game with clear direction. If you like the idea of retropunk setting, mystery/intrigue and a very dominant protagonist, you will be right at home with this one. This game certainly is worth your time and it's consistent enough so I can safely say that what you see during the first chapter, is also what you are going to get later. The dev is clear about the fetishes that will be featured down the line and you can read it in the developer notes.

I also appreciated the Fallout and DnD5e references. Liking similar things with the creator is a good indicator that his work will also be to my tastes and I believe that this notion applies to everyone.

Best of luck going forward.

Great game! The story is refreshing and the pacing is good too, the material being discussed in a post apocalyptic world is good and seems well thought out. There are no sex scenes there just for the sake of it and the plot makes you excited when sex scenes come up! Good writing, good animations, though wish it is updated more often.

This is the first time with one of these games/VNs that I am having a hard time coming up with any constructive criticism. It's a really great start and I am really looking forward to the next chapters.

The writing is solid, the story is pretty good and the renders/production are/is really well done. I love the combination of ancient Rome and future tech and the dev has found an interesting way to combine them and make them work.

The characters are all unique, both in looks and backstory. For once, all of the LIs look different from each other and their personalities and motivations are all different as well.

The only thing I am disappointed about is the planned harem. I understand it is driven by the story, so it makes it "feel" or "fit in" better, and at least there are only a handful of LIs instead of 9 or 10, but I will be interested in seeing how the dev handles the genre.

Regardless, if you are a sci-fi fan, you really need to give this a download and even if you are not, it's a great example of what an adult VN can be. We don't have to settle for mediocre.

Looking forward to seeing more from this dev!

As for this update, this is a good VN.

Story-- Not so unbelievable that you lose interest
Characters--Multi-layered to get you just interested to want more from them
Renders--Seamless transitions are a positive for driving the story.

Review
There were some things that stuck out. The clash of old and new is refreshing. You either get one or the other with this type of dystopian setting. TheRedMyst has blended them in a way that they seem to go together well enough.
I highly recommend this VN and hope that it's development continues.

Excellent work, it’s immediately clear that the author loves real classic science fiction and does his job with pleasure. Excellent graphics and plot, just a classic. Against the general background, in my opinion, this game can’t be compared with anything, the approach to writing games is too different, watching some you involuntarily ask yourself the question - why is this at all. In fact, the game brought aesthetic pleasure, like after reading a good book, it even lifted my spirits. Thanks to the author and the site, I hope that the continuation will not disappoint

The story seems well-planned, I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends, initially I thought it would go more towards comedy, but that's not the case, it's a serious story, with some humorous elements to balance it out.

There are many locations and characters, this indicates a rich world, that's always good.

The models aren't exactly the most attractive, but it works.

In this update (R0.3) we discovered that the protagonist was genetically made to be the protagonist, not with this objective, but with this result, I think everyone will like this.

The game has combat, I use URM so for me, it was simple to make the right choices, but those who like to explore the options should enjoy it.

Something I don't like is that the dev puts expressions in text, on the same line as the dialogue, I don't like that, he should leave it on top of the dialogue, not along with it, or at least use a different, or smaller, font.

New Antioch does something that few AVNs do, it makes me laugh. It also seems to have a proper story arc which generally is pretty rare in the genre (lots of games with character arcs, but few manage both). This game has all the earmarks of becoming something really great.

In it’s first three chapters Red Myst does a very good job at immersing us in the world, and we understand the MCs place and potential future in it. The world building (of which there is an impressive amount) and badass MC makes it an interesting read. The supporting cast is full of memorable characters, the dialogue (which is really why I like the game so much) is crisp and funny.

Visually, it hits the mark as well. Clean renders that are expertly lighted with a lot of beautiful low key/high con images which support the raw environment.

It also has some unusual and hot women, so if you like AVNs that tell a story…New Antioch is a must read.

To begin with, yeah the renders and graphics are really, really good. The scenes are all crisp and clean, wonderfully lit, all the characters look realistic and interesting. The writing is also good, and the story is somewhat interesting from what we have so far. Maybe there's a bit too much dialogue though? Sometimes it drones on and on about not so interesting things. I don't know if we need quiiiiite so much lore or banter between characters. There's also basically no sexual content yet aside from suggestive themes. I also have to say I really do not like these "minigames" that are here. The fights were just annoying because you can just flip back and forth to find the "correct" responses. There's not any type of choice or strategy it's just figure out the correct response to the dialogue spoken. There's also like a small choice system in how to talk to certain characters? Again, the same problem really. I'd rather the character just talk in the way we are building our character to be, not trying to figure out what makes some depressed emo guy not sad. I can already tell this is going to be a game in which a walkthrough will be basically mandatory because otherwise you're going to be guessing and screwing around with the unknown dialogues in order to get the most "points" instead of actually just roleplaying as a character you want to. This is why I don't like these point systems because the end result is just fishing back and forth for the correct responses. And for that, it really doesn't work for the type of game where you have the strong base for a tough gruff character. Moving on from that though the girls are hot, though I really detest all the flashing around to different scenes with different characters that I haven't even met. That's just really lazy. You're giving me characters that I have absolutely no knowledge of or any type of feeling towards and having me pre-base my disposition towards them early without even meeting my character. When I meet someone they should basically be a blank slate unless they've been spoken about by other characters in the world. Otherwise, you've already made me hate or like a character without the roleplaying aspect, which clearly is the goal for this game, to roleplay as this character. Overall it's not a bad game and there are some very strong bases here, but I hope a lot of the negatives get cleaned up and this game becomes a strong game for people looking for maledom manly mc's instead of the goofy beta mc's that seem to flood this site.

Really, nothing negative to say about the game. Every aspect is covered well, from visuals, story, character writing, sex scenes, all of it. My only hope is that we get the possibility to get an upper hand and get into more domination scenes than just being beholden to those above, but that's more out of anticipation and hopes for the story than anything to say about the quality. It's the kind of game other newcomers should look upto.

-Very good looking render
-Great Mood&Tone
-Font look very classy and fit the story
-The witch turn me on
-Dialogue and choice seems important
-The best is Keanu Reeves as MC

Can't wait for me of this good work

An interesting start, loads of potential.
As a fan of the Fallout games, I think the premise and setting have a lot of promise. The MC is interesting, the mechanics are fun, and there is a lot of time invested in building the world over throwing the player into the deep end.

The renders are fantastic, and the characters all seem to have their own flavor.

The only downside so far is the lack of depth in relationships between characters, and lack of overall content length. But, it's early days, and I think this is a game worth keeping an eye on. It could become something great.

Fantastic so far. The setting and characters are interesting, and I think work the author put in on those aspects shines through so far. The graphics are good. The mechanics in the fights are pretty good. Too often odd sections like that can get frustrating, but it was pretty good. Looking forward to future releases