My Candy Love Overview
My Candy Love was one of the first otome-style PC games I ever played. This is going to date me, but when I was a teenager My Candy Love just started. In fact, I can remember waiting anxiously for Ep 21 to be released. Fourteen years later, My Candy Love: High School Life has 40 episodes, a second season called University Life with 20 episodes, and a third season called Love Life with 17 episodes. There’s even a fourth spinoff season called Alternate Life which has three routes with six episodes each. Talk about growing along with the game development!
This epic visual novel created by Beemoov spans your character’s life from high school to adulthood. It has been one of my favorite games for years. I come back to it again and again because it has all the elements I love in a romance story. The characters are life-like and relatable. The stories are raw and emotional. In addition, the artwork (with a few exceptions in the very beginning) is stunning.
Note: Throughout this overview, I’ll often shorten My Candy Love to MCL, and the different seasons as HSL, UL, LL, or AL, just for brevity’s sake. I will do my best not to give any spoilers!
Plot Review
I personally hate spoilers so I will do my best to keep this overview as vague as possible. My Candy Love starts when your character (I’ll refer to her as Candy) moves into a town called Sweet Amoris in the middle of her junior year (Grade 11). As Candy familiarizes herself with her new surroundings she meets new friends and comes into contact with five potential love interests.
The High School Life portion of MCL has the most episodes, but it’s also the first installment. The creators made lots of changes as the story progressed and they experimented with the website. The episodes get longer and the dialogue more detailed as you go and the art also improves in each new episode. Candy is insatiably curious and as she gets settled into her new school she is always in the thick of whatever drama is occurring.
The storyline has several arcs that focus on one of the main romantic targets at a time. By the end of senior year, Candy has had many adventures and forged forever friendships. And, if you made the right choices, she also found her high school sweetheart.
When you start season two, University Life, four years have passed since Candy graduated high school. Her parents moved away for a job opportunity and Candy, being only 18 and not confident in living on her own, went with them. She lost touch with her old friends in Sweet Amoris and had to end things with her high school sweetheart because of the distance. Now, she’s back to attend Anteros Academy, the local university in Sweet Amoris, for her final year as an Art History major.
The plot for MCL: UL is a little more fluid than HSL. It mixes important points with several characters at once instead of dividing things into specific character arcs. I really like how each love interest has an important role throughout the main storyline. Still, there are times when one of the romantic leads is the main focus because they’re going through something difficult. MCL: UL packs in a ton of realistic drama, yet you can hardly believe so much craziness can happen to one person.
In the first half of the season, Candy develops friendships with each of the five love interests. By Episode 10 “The First Date” Candy should have chosen her romantic interest. It’s not strictly necessary since as long as you have a high enough Love’o’Meter you can change who you pursue, but I personally like to focus on one love interest at a time. The second half of the season is a balancing act for Candy. She has to juggle spending time with her friends and nurturing a relationship with her love interest while graduating from university.
After the last episode of UL, Candy is (hopefully) in a happy and committed relationship and has moved in with them. The beginning of Love Life jumps three years in the future this time. Candy and her lover lived together for most of that time and Candy has become an entrepreneur. She owns a darling cafe where she hangs art pieces for people to admire and hopefully purchase. It’s an “approachable art gallery” concept, which I think is super unique and interesting.
The plot of Love Life is structured very similarly to HSL. The driving force of the plot focuses on one or two characters at a time with the other characters either supporting or working against them.
Castiel is the main character at the beginning of the season while the rest of the characters help him overcome a difficult time in his career. Next is Hyun who is unhappy with his job and decides to take a gamble with his new business. Rayan and Priya’s turn in the plot is very much connected and brings up an issue of political importance.
Nathaniel plays an important role throughout the season. However, the culmination of a lot of his time and effort ends up causing a major catastrophe for Candy’s business. (As in close the doors, bye-bye job). So everyone rallies together as Candy tries to save her Cafe Gallery. The last two episodes are similar to an epilogue and, depending on your choices, Candy will have her happily ever after with the person she’s fallen in love with.
Finally, Alternate Life is the last addition to the My Candy Love storyline (at least on the original mycandylove.com website). After the first season ended, not all of the boys featured in HSL appeared in UL. In fact, only two (Castiel and Nathaniel) made the cut.
Obviously, some fans of the original love interests would be disappointed by their favorite boy being cut out. (Namely me. I almost cried when sweet Kentin wasn’t included in the romance options of UL) BUT! Beemoov was exceedingly kind and created a fourth season for the game where they made a route for Kentin, Lysander, and Armin.
What I love about AL is that each route only has one boy (well, I suppose “man” would be more accurate). The storylines are unique and independent of each other. So you don’t have to worry about slow parts in the story because your romance target isn’t the focal point. AL follows the same timeline as UL. After a four-year time skip Candy is reunited with her high school sweetheart. Depending on her choices they may have a chance to reignite their past spark and find their happily ever after.
Love Interests by Season
Now for the heart fluttering part of this overview: The love interests! In High School Life you can pick between 5 male love interests. Starting in University Life there are four male and one female love interest which carry over to Love Life with one additional love interest (he’s a bit of a… well, not exactly a hidden route but something like that). And then in Alternate Life, as I mentioned above, we get the happy endings with the three love interests that got dropped from HSL.
You can find the love interests profiles pretty easily so I won’t go into too much detail but the above picture shows the five HSL options. Although poor Kentin’s face looks a little odd in that picture, I promise he’s much cuter in the actual visual novel. From left to right you have: Kentin, Candy’s childhood friend who’s had a crush on her forever. Lysander, the absentminded poet. Castiel, the gruff guitarist. Nathaniel, the serious student body president. And Armin, the quirky gamer.
I have played through all of their routes and they are absolutely adorable. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but I can see why Beemoov chose to bring Castiel and Nathaniel into the second season. They were definitely the most popular in fanfiction from what I could see. I’m a sucker for the childhood friend trope, so if I had to pick a favorite then Kentin would be my choice. But again, they all are wonderful and deserve a read-through!
In Alternate Life, you get to have 6 episodes with nothing but the boy you choose, whether that’s Kentin, Lysander, or Armin. I am still working on Lysander and Armin’s alternate routes, but Kentin’s AL route was delightful!! Plus the illustrations were stunning, so I highly recommend it!
From left to right in the image you have the University Life love interests. Hyun, Candy’s co-worker who dreams of backpacking across Asia. Mr. Rayan Zaidi, a sociable college professor who encourages his students to think outside the box. Castiel, lead singer of a local rock band that is just starting to get popular. Nathaniel, the good-turned-bad boy who all Candy’s old friends have shunned. And Priya, the confident and outspoken law student.
Even though I was originally sad Kentin was dropped from the lineup of love interest choices for University Life, I was not disappointed by the new characters! You’ll have to hold on tight as you go through the story of University Life. The storyline is packed with drama, intrigue, and many interesting side characters.
Again, whichever route you choose, you won’t be disappointed. Each character has something unique and interesting to discover about them. My favorite… you know, I’m not sure I have one since they’re all so different. In fact, I don’t think I can choose a favorite. As soon as I think I’ve chosen, something about another love interest reminds me how wonderful they are and it’s just an endless circle. So you’ll have to let me know if you have a favorite after playing through the routes!
Candy (your character) is the one in the center of the above picture. Everyone else is the same as UL, except for the man behind Nathaniel and Priya. His name is Eric and he is the special route I mentioned before. No spoilers, but there will be a point in the storyline where, if you are unhappy with your current lover, you can choose to pursue Eric. I have not played his route yet since I was perfectly happy with my character’s lover during the route. I do plan to go back and play his route at some point though because I am hopelessly curious.
As for my impressions of the plot for Love Life… It’s a very realistic storyline. There are many ups and downs with Candy and her lover. The challenges with making a committed relationship work vary from external circumstances to internal emotional ones. There is one specific arc (Episodes 9-13) that I personally found… frustrating. However, that part of the story highlights an important life lesson, so no matter how frustrating I may have found it, I will definitely read it again.
I will say that Hyun stole my heart in this season of My Candy Love. All the routes were interesting and had beautiful endings that wrapped things up satisfactorily. Yet even through the hard times, Hyun remained a bright spot that I really appreciated in a story with some pretty heavy topics.
Site Navigation/Daily AP & Gold
To create an account on My Candy Love is super easy! All you have to do is go to mycandylove.com, click the giant green “Register” button, and create your account. There is an app as well, but personally, I prefer to play on a desktop. I like to have the characters as big as possible when I’m reading.
Once you have created an account, the first thing that pops up is your Daily AP & Gold notification. Every day you log in you earn 20 Action Points and 5 Gold. Gold is used to purchase outfits to unlock the special episode illustrations. Each dialogue in the story costs 2 AP so 20 AP will get you 10 sentences/short paragraphs.
Obviously, that is not going to get you very far. I don’t know about you, but cliffhangers drive me nuts. So what I do is wait until I’ve accumulated enough AP to read through an entire episode before starting. Later in the overview, I’ll put some walkthroughs that other bloggers have kindly created. They’ve taken the time to calculate the AP you’ll need for each episode so you can use that as a reference if you’re like me and want to read the episode in one sitting.
If you are not the patient sort, there are several ways to earn more AP. First, MCL has a mini-games section that can be found in your room/apartment. The “Cash” is a daily scratch card that can award you anywhere from 0 to 20 gold. “Flower Power” is a mini-game where you choose a petal that gives you a random amount of AP also between 0 and 20. These require no skill and less than 10 seconds to complete, so definitely worth it!
The other two mini-games only unlock if you’ve played through MCL: HSL Episode 3. Once you unlock them, you can play either game to earn up to 5 AP. They do take 5-10mins (especially the breaking bricks game) so those are options if you’ve got time to kill.
Second, if you have a budget for entertainment purchases you can also go to the Bank section of the website (far right tab) and purchase AP and Gold. Personally, I am something of a freegan when it comes to entertainment and I’ve been playing this for 14 years now so I don’t mind waiting around for my AP and Gold to accumulate. Still, it’s nice to have the option to purchase AP if can’t wait to find out what happens next.
Now I’ll briefly describe the other main areas of the website. The far left tab is the homepage where you can see your customized character, how many episodes you’ve completed of each of the four seasons, etc. The second from the right tab “My Room” is where you will go to find the mini-games, closet, and illustrations you’ve unlocked. In the picture below I’ve circled where to click for HSL, UL/AL, and LL.
In the “The City” tab, you can see a representation of the locations you will visit during the game. I don’t use this tab often, but it’s a fun addition. Next, the “My Episodes” tab is useful to gauge your progress in the story. This is also where you would go if you want to replay an episode. Since I’ve played this game for so long I have replayed episodes multiple times to unlock different illustrations.
The last tab ”Characters” is one of the most important for HSL and UL. In these two seasons, you have multiple love interests. As you go through the episodes your dialogue choices will affect the characters “Love’o’Meter.” When you’ve decided on the love interest you want to pursue, you can come into the “Characters” tab and click the “Crush” button.
The first time you choose a crush it’s free but if you change it later it costs 100AP to change, so make absolutely sure this is the love interest for you when you choose your crush! This gives the character an automatic 10% affection boost and increases their Love’o’Meter maximum to 110%.
Customization of Character
The first thing you need to know is that if you don’t want to use your username for your character’s name in the story, there is a way to change it! In the box on the top right of your screen where your username, AP, and Gold are listed you’ll see the “Profile” button. If you click that it will open the “My Profile” page with cute little info cards.
Click on “My Account” and the first box labeled “My Information” has a “story name” input box. Simply type whatever name you want in there and it will appear in the dialogue of the story! This is something I was super happy to discover. It helped the story flow since my username had a number in it and it was super weird when characters would call Candy’s name and it would be Candy17.
Now to the fun part, customizing the appearance of your character! In your closet underneath the image of your character, you’ll find three little buttons. To customize her physical features click the first button.
There are two main differences between character customization between HSL and UL/LL/AL. The first is that in HSL you can choose whether Candy’s hair is curly, long, or pixie-cut. I really loved having this option, but to be honest, after experimenting with the hairstyles I really only liked the pixie cut with Castiel and Armin and I wasn’t a huge fan of the curly hairstyle (just personal preference.) Plus I’m sure the illustrator had to put in so much extra effort to make the three separate hairstyles in each illustration. So after HSL you don’t get to choose your hairstyle, it’s always long.
The other major difference is the skin color customization. Starting in University Life you can choose from one of five skin colors. I LOVE that they added this option! It’s a little sad they couldn’t include the different skin colors for HSL since it’s awkward to have illustrations of a pale-skinned girl in HSL and then suddenly have gorgeous dark skin in UL. Still, with three new love interests in UL, it’s not a huge deal.
No matter what season you start in the hair and eye color options are the same. You have 12 options for both hair color and eye color so there are 144 possible combinations for your character! Add in the skin colors and the sky is the limit! I love the color options that they have for eyes and hair. Although in a perfect world, I would have liked both a light and dark green eye color. BUT they have purple eyes, so that makes everything okay in my book.
Walkthroughs for MCL
Every episode of MCL has the potential to unlock a special illustration. However, to get it, you have to accrue enough Love’o’Meter points and choose the correct outfit. So, this is just my personal opinion, but there is nothing worse than waiting weeks to save up a ton of AP and spending a good chunk of gold only to not get the illustration. BEYOND annoying. I mean, who would ever want to miss out on gorgeous art like this?
To avoid said annoyance, I searched for online walkthroughs. Wonderful, blessed, saintly bloggers have actually taken the time and effort to create walkthroughs for every episode. They show which dialogues affect the Love’o’Meter, how much AP and Gold are needed for the episode, which outfit to purchase for your desired illustration… pretty much anything you could want to know.
There are three blogs that I have found especially helpful. The first is Magic Belodie. The link is here: https://magicbelodie.com/my-candy-love/ This blog has walkthroughs for most HSL episodes (there are a few left blank even if there is a link to it), and all of UL, LL, & AL episodes. Magic Belodie’s walkthroughs are (in my opinion) the easiest to follow and the best organized. Whenever I have the choice, I always use her walkthroughs.
However, Magic Belodie is missing some walkthroughs for HSL. If you run into that issue, the other blogger I check is Kizmet Candy: https://kizmetcandy.tumblr.com/. I’ll include the link but, to be honest, I can’t figure out how to navigate her menu. Usually, I just google “My Candy Love HSL Ep [insert #]” and it will pop up with Kizmet’s Tumblr page for the specific episode.
The last blogger I’ll mention is Crystal Dreams: https://www.crystal-dreams.us/?page_id=6284. This blog also has very well-designed and easy-to-follow walkthroughs. However, Crystal Dreams only has the last few HSL episodes, the first few UL, and none of the LL episode guides. She does have all of the AL episodes, which is nice, but I’d still go to Magic Belodie first. What sets Crystal Dreams apart, then? She is the most up-to-date blogger with walkthroughs for the newest addition to the franchise, My Candy Love: New Gen, which I will make a separate overview for another time.
Between these three blogs, you should be able to find any walkthrough you could want to make sure you get the illustrations you are hoping for!
Free Gifts
Sorry, I know this blog post is ridiculously long. I figured I’d end things by showing you how to get some free gifts for your account! The first one is the flying cupcake gift.
While you are playing MCL on any of the four seasons, you will randomly see a cute little cupcake with wings flying across your screen. If you manage to click it before it flies off the page you win a wearable item. You can find these items in the closet and put on your character that stands on the side of your screen at all times. It’s a fun little freebie.
There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for when the cupcake will show up, so keep your eyes peeled and click on it as soon as you see it! Oh, and don’t bother trying to change from the current page you are on to another season before you click on the cupcake, the wearable item was already selected before you click. For example: I was playing on the HSL page when the cupcake came on the screen and quickly changed to the UL profile to try and get an item for that season. When I clicked on the cupcake, though, it was an HSL item that I won.
The second freebie I wanted to show you is on the “Bank” tab where you can get 700 AP, but you have to click on the box to receive it. Similarly, when you create a new account it will ask you to verify your email account which will give you 100 AP and 100 Gold. Totally worth it, in my opinion. Especially since it takes a really long time to save up Gold.
My last tip isn’t exactly a free gift, but it could potentially help you go through the routes a little faster. At the very top right-hand corner of the My Candy Love website, you’ll find two tabs. One tab has your home country’s flag (USA for me) and the other has the Beemoov logo. Pro tip… do I count as a pro? I mean, 14 year veteran player I assume I do 😅 ANYWAYS! Pro Tip: Click on the flag tab and you will see several different countries listed. One of them is the Great Britain flag.
If you click on that it will take you to Sweet Crush, the European version of My Candy Love. You can create an account on this website with the same email you used for the American version. If you know other languages this opens up tons of options for you as well! I made an account on the Spain portal as well and it was kind of fun to go through the story in Spanish.
And honestly, I recommend creating an account on Sweet Crush for the sole reason that in HSL Episode 16 (I believe) Candy calls Castiel a “plonker.” I about died from laughing. I’m sure that’s a legitimate insult across the pond, but it’s not a commonly used one in the States. It made me giggle.
Conclusion
Phew! We made it! That was way longer than I expected, but there are four storylines on this one website, so I guess it makes sense. The main takeaway I hope you have from this overview is that if you are looking for an adorable, interesting, and realistic otome-style visual novel where you only have to spend money on it if you choose: My Candy Love is the game for you. I can guarantee that MCL will give you all kinds of romantic heart flutters while bringing up hard topics and making them approachable and relatable.
If any of you have already played My Candy Love, do you have a favorite route? Have you tried out My Candy Love: New Gen, yet? And for those who haven’t played this before, is there a character you’re most curious about?
Thanks for reading this enormous overview! I’ll post reviews of the individual routes slowly in the next few months, so if you’re curious feel free to check them out! Have a fluttery day
