I just played chapter 3 of New Antioch (I'm sure chapter 3 will be available here in a matter of days), and I'm really impressed by the amount of world building and character development that
Red Myst has managed to insert into his AVN.
Just finished the update: _New Antioch_ is a fun, impressively produced game that does a number of things exceptionally well. I enjoyed playing and will look out for updates. But
it is not a story-first game, certainly not according to jufot's criteria.
Highlights:
The fight scenes are satisfying. Devs have gradually figured out how to make action sequences feel compelling in Ren'Py, and Antioch builds on this tradition. It combines action stills, music and choices into a kinetic mix... not as well as _Race for Life_, for example, but still very effectively.
Strong world building. The game world is a pastiche of various sci-fi, fantasy and historical themes... but it's an interesting pastiche. Rocket is right: this is solid work.
It uses Roman motifs well -- mostly because it doesn't try to set the game in the real-world classical period. Instead, its version of Rome is like the Romulans in _Star Trek_: Roman-eque, rather than Roman. That's a wise move.
The LIs have agency, although they are mostly porn tropes. They're interesting, and have independent motives that are worth sussing out.
Lowlights:
The MC. Many, many young male players will love him, because he's a Gary Stu on
mutated steriods. I'm sure that's the idea. But his fastastic prowess makes him quite boring to play, IMO.
The Plot. Features the oldest, dumbest porn cliche in the book: I've been created to save the world using my
massive mutated superdong, super jizz and alpha male pheramones! Yay!
FFS.
That said... it's a very well executed alpha male porn fantasy. I found myself laughing at some of the (quite intentionally) cornball stuff.
It's instructive, again, to compare _New Antioch_ to _Race for Life_. I think the consensus on this thread is that the latter is also a porn-first game... but, intriguingly, one of its eight or so routes is actually powerfully story-first. If you play through it in exactly the right way you get a rather moving, story-first easter egg in an otherwise porny game.
_New Antioch_ doesn't have a hidden non-porny route. But... the MC is not a douchebag, as in RFL -- you can play him as quite a honourable character, apart from his, ah, 'handicap.' If you like _Conan the Barbarian_ this game will appeal.