Women of Xal Demo

Fictional universes are always interesting to explore and investigate, especially if they are created with enough details to be believable. It’s also important to include great characters with different personalities and goals, because they keep the story going. In video games, sometimes it’s better to let the main character be molded by the players instead.

Women of Xal is an interactive visual novel in which you get to witness a political race between women as they try to inherit the fortune and power of another woman who decides to retire. You get to make various choices along the way to secure your victory, as well as to choose a potential romantic partner if you want to, given the fact that this side of the game is entirely optional.

To begin with, you play as a woman by the name of Xjena, and it is up to you to decide her personality by taking the desired dialog paths. Whether you want her to be ruthless, kind or manipulative, the choices you make affect both her fate and the story itself. Speaking of which, it all starts when Xuna Xaovant decides to give her business empire away to a suitable heir, and your character is one of the chosen finalists in this race.

Xjena has a variety of romantic relationships at her disposal as well, regardless of whether you want to go for another woman or one of the few men around Xuna’s estate. Speaking of which, men are mostly there as servants or part of Xuna’s harem, and they are obligated by law to stay there, for some reason. It’s a fairly weird world, but you can get behind it with some mind gymnastics.

Lastly, the graphics are not bad at all, especially when it comes to character design, given the fact that every character comes with multiple poses and facial expressions. However, some of the backgrounds could use a bit more work, because they appear rather flat. Thankfully, there are some truly gorgeous backgrounds in there as well, and they really help a lot with the overall atmosphere.

Women of Xal may not have the perfect premise or the most logical character background stories, but then again it’s not meant to be very serious anyway. Hence, it can easily occupy your time, and you can support the developers by participating in their Kickstarter campaign.