Radi Art and Top Hat Studios announced that Synergia, the upcoming cyberpunk visual novel, has a free demo that you can get your hands on right now over on the Top Hat Studios itch.io page.

The game is set in a futuristic world that centers around an angry, nihilistic cop named Cila who ends up with a replacement droid for her house called M.A.R.A.

The two end up hitting it off after a rocky start, as the android attempts to learn from Cila while Cila learns to love life again… just until the mega-corporation Velta Labs catches wind of Mara’s existence and attempts to retrieve her from Cila by any means necessary. This kicks off a tense thrill-ride that takes players through the ups and downs of Cila and Mara’s relationship, as well as the cost of giving value to an android’s life.

A few of the commenters on the YouTube page enjoyed the soundtrack, noting that they recognized the music artist from Katawa Shoujo. This is also the same artist working on the soundtrack to another cyberpunk thriller called Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story.

Visually we don’t get to see much of the game itself, but those screenshots are presented on the itch.io page and it’s definitely not structured like the typical visual novel. There’s a more intimate feel to the way the atmosphere and characters are portrayed.

To help make that intimacy feel more visceral and atmospheric, Radi Art made nearly 100 unique backgrounds and CG images, so it’s closer to the likes of being presented like a moving manga or anime.

The game features more than 20 characters and will total out at around six through nine hours of gameplay. The reason for the short length is because you get to make various choices for the characters that will drastically alter the outcome of the story.

That being said, you will have access to multiple endings based on the choices you make throughout Synergia.

In some ways it reminds me of Insert Disk 22 (better known to others as Top Hats & Champagne) point-and-click adventure title, Born Punk, just designed in visual novel format.

You can grab the demo for the upcoming visual novel right now from over on the itch.io page, or follow Top Hat Studios on social media to keep up to date on when Synergia will release.