Review written Dec 27. 2024, on version v0.21.3.
Foreword
I'm a fan of HTML games, but I've long avoided the "real porn" genre. This is the second or third game I have tried to play that includes it as its main sexual content, and I never felt it was executed well in any of them. Since I'm not really a fan of it, this review may be biased in that respect.
Summary
X-Change Life presents itself as the archetypal Twine simulator game, kin of which you've scrolled past thousands of times as a casual browser of this site. If you've played one of those, you probably have already played this game in some form or another, and you probably know what I'll complain about here.
X-Change Life feels less like a game and more like a vehicle for porn GIFs and erotic sound effects. This is a fine purpose for a game -- not everything has to be intricate or have Shakespearean writing. The reason I've rated this game as low as I have is that X-Change Life takes porn and takes simulator game mechanics and puts it together for something that's less than the sum of its parts. Its game mechanics detract from the porn to the point where, even as a player of erotic games who prefers it to porn, I would prefer to just watch the video presented instead.
Gameplay: Less than the Sum
The mechanics of this game are your typical Twine fare. A few main stats (Fitness, Charm, and Intellect) define your character's strengths and weaknesses, allowing you better odds at passing d20 skill checks and granting you points to spend on in-game actions. I found the resource management of these points compelling - spending a Wit point from your Charm might make someone like you more, spending a Willpower point from your Intellect might allow you to resist temptation and focus on work, and they're impactful enough to make you think about whether you'll regret not having enough later.
However, I did mention that there are aspects of the gameplay that just detract from the experience. "Good" gameplay and "bad" gameplay is a little bit of a fickle thing to explain, so instead of trying to be a game designer about it, I'll have you participate in an interactive exercise.
I'm sure most of you reading have played Wordle before. I'd like you, for a moment, to open Pornhub on your phone and fire up your favorite video. Have you done that, yet? Good. Now open Wordle on your PC and start playing. Make sure to keep your dick in your hand.
...I hope this demonstrates my issue with the game's "minigame" design. This is a real minigame from X-Change Life, the one you play as an office secretary. I didn't play for long enough to witness the other ones, but based on the initial character creation settings of the game, one of them is Tetris. Right...
Writing is Hard
I get it. Writing compelling smut is a tricky thing. That being said, I enjoy the world of X-Change Life. Male to female transformation itself is something I'm neutral on. I enjoyed the idea of it as presented in the game, and I took the "X-Change pill" path to transform into more of a woman (you may only be an originally male protagonist) when I played the game. I've always been a sucker for the urban trope of a city with fewer laws and regulations in games -- I was a fan of Cyberpunk's Night City. It's no wonder that X-Change Life's modern, trendy, Florida-inspired (as I read it) Summer City initially pulled me in and immersed me.
However, this brief immersion is deafeningly shattered immediately upon arriving at your relative's house where you'll be saying, with the corny-porny female voice-over blurting, "Wow, stepbro, you made it!".
From here, the idea of Summer City quickly disintegrates away and you're left with writing on-par with or worse-than Pornhub. I suspect the game is so highly rated because, unlike most HTML porn-rips out there, this is porn-level writing by an English-speaking native rather than Cyrillic passed through Google Translate. Nevertheless, it is still porn-level writing with porn gifs in the background, and this fully kills off the point of the game for me. The only thing that X-Change Life adds to the porn (besides Wordle and Tetris) is the idea that the woman you're seeing get railed was originally male, so if you're into that enough, you might enjoy this game. I'm not, so it didn't.
Conclusion
In conclusion, X-Change Life (despite its high rating and native-level writing) is the same linear realporn slop of which hundreds are published every month. I can recommend it to you if you're into MtF transformation enough that the other aspects I mentioned can be overlooked. But, for the average adult gamer, I recommend finding old-fashioned video porn (or finding a different game to spend your time on).