Hot Candy Land

Porn and parody go together like sex and marriage. Okay, maybe that’s not the best comparison. Perhaps I should say that spoof and smut pair as well as an oak Chardonnay with salmon on water crackers.

To fancy for some folk? Parody has been virtually synonymous with adult entertainment for decades, particularly ever since the courts in the States have begun to side with the pornographers and defended their rights to riff on pop culture circa the 2000s.

In the years since, there has been an explosion of porn films like this, but rarely have I seen many games that follow this trend.

Sure there are game clones that are just established video game franchises with a few skin changes. But to me, those don’t really count – after all, the thing that makes a parody suitable is that there is some extra creativity.

However, as with all things in today’s world, if you dig deep enough, you’ll find what you are looking for. I did for a little and found that there are some such as Hot Candy Land.

Is This an Adult Parody on a Classic or Something Even Better?

I’m sure that a lot of people reading, if not the majority, have played Candy Land or some similar board game as k*ds. Begin intended for ages four and up, the rules of the original are simple: draw cards to advance around the board, avoid traps, and make it to the end first.

How does this adult-only and mature game compare? To be honest, there isn’t much of a similarity superficially between this game and its namesake, and I say that as a good thing. That does not mean that on a deeper, meta-level there aren’t parallels between the two. For one, this game is a business management simulator set in the porn industry with loads of mechanics. However, as adult games go, this one certainly does incentivize you to go out there and get some sugar.

Of course, the most obvious similarity is that the first game sold itself on visions of literal candy as part of the experience. One of Hot Candy Land’s main appeals is the features of the eye candy of animated but still alluring women.

There Are a Lot of Mechanics to Master, but It’s Not Too Difficult

As with other games in this genre, your primary motive is to acquire money to start your own porn studio, acquire talent, and become respected by the local pimps to up your Mojo. While doing this, you are going to have to balance your energy levels and not get burned out.

From the start, you can make small amounts of chump change selling cheap skin pics to people, giving quickies to elderly women, and giving bike rides to bank robbers to ditch the fuzz. Most of your major moneymakers are selling your self as a gigolo and pleasing older women.

You know, all of the typical ways aspiring porn producers start making money. Once you get the proper starter materials, you can recruit new models by locating possible models in different locales. Once you’ve chatted one up, you’ve got to convince them through a series of dialogue trees.

Those Are Just The Basics – There’s More to Master

From there, you go on a series of quests which center mostly around making money for your items and sets, find women to perform on them, and earn Candy Points.

What are those? Well, they are a nice addition to the game which I’ve not seen anywhere else. You see, at the start, your Ron Jeremey-inspired avatar isn’t very good at sex, but as you get more points, you can grow your virtual dick one millimeter at a time. Between this and getting new stuff, you can acquire more sex skills.

The bigger you are, and the more skills you have, the better your sexual performance, which gets you more money and, ultimately, opportunities. To bring up another neat element, you can engage in all kinds of sex, such which involves toys and a rubber. Alternatively, you can “feel lucky” and go without wearing a raincoat – just remember that all things in this game have consequences. Besides scoring porn performers, once you reach level 7, you get the chance to become a pimp as well! Like other porn studio simulators, the progression is very similar both when it comes to rewards as well. From the start, your character’s room is a hole in the wall with tattered posters, stained floors, and, hilariously, a used blowup doll.

When you start to get some success, your living space improves kind of the same way the player’s throne does in the Sid Meier’s Civilization series.

Worried About the Learning Curve? Don’t Sweat It At All

Between buying sex toys, getting all kinds of “normal” and seedy jobs, buying pornos, and creating them, there is a lot going on here. In fact, it’ll take you at least several minutes to get through the basics of this game.

With all of the gameplay elements, there is a lot to learn, but fortunately, there are several ways to become an expert at Hot Candy Land. The tutorial is extremely comprehensive and should make it simple for anyone to understand the fundamentals and detailed aspects of this game.

Besides that, there are prompts throughout the game and offsite resources to go to as well. On Facebook page @HotCandyLand, you can interact with one of the moderators if you have any questions. An even better option would be to click over to the HCL live chat, forum, and Discord server.

The forum has hundreds of posts, most of which cover FAQs, should help you with most of the common problems or parts where people get stuck. The Discord community isn’t huge, but when I checked, there is commonly going to be about a dozen people online.

Here’s What I Think About How HCL Looks

You don’t have to spend too much time playing this game to notice that there has been a ton of attention given to the character’s design, most of all, the women. No, surprise there, but what about everything else?

The collectible items and clickable icons are designed and rendered well enough – however, some of the backgrounds could use some work. It’s not big enough an issue for me to dock this game too many points, but some rendering is way off in terms of angle and perspective.

If I were one of the developers, I’d take the responsible illustrators to task for incorporating such sloppily designed elements.

The Music Is Appropriately Sultry with a Bit of Class

As this is a game that deliberately lampoons the stereotypical sleazy side of the porn industry, I didn’t go into this expecting the music tracks to be all that great. I am happy to say that one of the main themes is a classy sounding but soft big band number with a few jazz elements thrown in.

Between the piano elements harmonizing with the string and horn numbers, it does a lot to help set the mood. Another musical ditty is similar, but with all of the synthesizers used instead of traditional instruments, it has more of a 90s video game sound to it.

My one issue is that the loop has the odd habit of pausing for a little before cycling again, which can be distracting. There are only two songs to pick from, too, which is a little aggravating.

When it comes to the rest of the audio FX, they are there but not frequent enough for my liking. Most of the things you click on don’t even give you a sound clue, which I find to be strange.

How Much Explicit and Erotic Content Are You In For?

Short answer: once you’re finished reading this article, log into the HCL website and find out. Long answer: When you log into the homepage, you’re greeted with the spectacle of two sexy women, one in angelic garb the other looking like a sexy devil.

Once you verify your age, their appearance changes quite a bit. To be exact, they only have on thongs on, and that’s it.

That’s just a tease about how much hot and heavy content you are going to see. All of the girls in the game’s town are scantily clad, and that’s referring to the ones who don’t appear in your studio’s skin flicks.

Throughout the game, you solicit prostitutes, build reports with prospective models and interact with other women who are busty and will eventually bear it all.

Most of these nudie shots are stills, but there are some simple animations in little snippets seen in several sections.

Here Is What Mobile Machine Users Are in For

Officially, there is a mobile version and has all of the same features as the desktop game. From what I’ve seen, it runs perfectly fine, but there is a slight issue. Depending on the kind of handheld device you are using, you may have a problem.

Those with a modern Android or a late model iPhone or tablet user won’t have an issue pressing button. However, if you’re using a smaller mobile, you are going to have issues when it comes to interactivity, especially if you’ve got bigger fingers.

My Final Thoughts on This Free-to-play Adult Game

There is plenty to enjoy about this game between the sexual adventures, fetch quests, and studio construction. Then there is the fact that this game has tons of erotic cartoons, some of which are animated.

I haven’t really covered it too much, but this game has plenty of rude and crude humor, which is totally my jam. If you enjoy reading these posts and the crass quips within them, then you’ll appreciate what you see here.

When it comes to critique, most of mine are only on minor things. For instance, I wish some of the drawings would be better and more animations would be added. While the sounds and songs which are there are great, there doesn’t seem to be enough for more. Lastly, sometimes the text informing you about exchanges and acquisitions can scroll by a little bit fast.

Putting all of these pros and few cons together, I can definitely endorse playing this business management game and feel it should get four and a half out of five hands.