Ready for some clown porn? I hope you are, because we're about to dive into this PC game from 1996 called Circus of Love. Things are about to get strange, real quick!

Interestingly, not a single review of this hidden porn gem can be found online. Which is odd, considering it's a porn game featuring a clown and busty pornstars, released for PC!

Who doesn't get curious after reading that sentence? Circus of Love seems like a true curiosity, in my book. One that not many even aren't familiar with at all... yet.

Circus Of Love (1996)

Again, not a single review to be found on the web, which is strange, considering the total amount of data and info widely available online these days.

Well, that same thing can be said about the information on this odd, erotic PC CD-ROM game called Circus Of Love that can be found online, that's also slim to none.

The Circus of Love game is basically completely missing from any game database online, even though plenty of other game titles by the same producer (Vivid Interactive) do seem to get listed.

I guess there's not much love for kinky clowns anymore, these days. Perhaps this article will shine some new light on this naughty PC game from the past.

The fact that this game gets rarely featured anywhere online, I think we can assume that this means that so many people, or most people even, have no clue this naughty FMV game even exists in the first place...

Let's face it, name one other porn game, or regular videogame for that matter, which has crappy, low resolution, FMV scenes involving a circus theme, a horny, dancing clown and features plenty of ass and titties to enjoy on screen, right?

I surely can't name another title like that! Circus of Love is one of a kind, folks. By the way, let's keep it that way too. ;)

Circus of Love (1996) is simply a totally unique adult game, considering its use of a circus themes mixed with video footage of a clown character combined with naked pornstars, ready to reward the player on some eye-candy once it reaches the high score.

In terms of gameplay though? Well, it ain't much, let's put it that way. It's hillariously bad, but who cares when it offers clowns and pornstars... and that in 1996! Yeah, the world of PC CD-ROM releases, back in the day, could get pretty wild, didn't it?

Got curious? Good!

Meet the forgotten adult game, released in 1996 by Vivid Interactive for naughty gamers on PC-CDROM (for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95) called Circus of Love.

Let's check it out what this spicy CD-ROM disc is all about by booting up an ancient version of the Microsoft's Windows operating system! By the way, it's also compatible with old Mac systems.

Pimpy The Clown

Once we've popped in the CD-ROM into our disc drive, booted up Windows 3.1, installed Quicktime (for video playback), we are ready to launch Vivid's erotic PC game: Circus of Love.

Right of the bat, we are greeted with circus music in the background and the game title appearing on screen. But wait, what's that? Right after the game title screen, a random black guy in clown suit appears on my monitor.

It gets weirder, suddenly clown Pimpy starts dancing, for no reason whatsoever...

It's been a while since I laughed my butt off like this.

Let's hear what Pimpy the Clown has to say to us, the player:
"Welcome to the Circus of Love, where the fun never stops."

Followed up with:
"Roll your ball, shoot your rod, pound that bell, all for the best pussy ever seen..."

I'm surely intrigued by now. It's the typical, "it's so bad, it's good" kinda stuff! Loving this so far!

Pimpy continues to explain on screen, how you'll get to win tickets and claim your prices at the price booth after "scoring" in one of the mini-games.

After this epic introduction featuring Pimpy the clown, I wonder if the rest of the game holds up? Because that's the real question today... and we're about to find out in a minute!

Win tickets and claim your sexy prices

Long story short, we need to beat the mini games included on the disc, in order to win tickets and unlock our prices! Let's give it a try and let's just click on the price booth to see what "prices" are up for grabs for us in this game.

This takes us to a new menu screen. There are 3 price categories, depending on how many tickets you've won, and as a result, which XXX clips you'll get to unlock.

All rewards are FMV scenes. Basically, the unlockable rewards are porn scenes produced by famous, long running porn studio - Vivid Entertainment.

Difference here is that the adult entertainment isn't slapped on DVD but slapped on this CD-ROM disc (and rather in a low resolution) as digital video files, instead.

And low resolution is quite an understatement here... Trust me!

Fair enough, it must be said that low resolution video clips were "the standard" in those 90's FMV CD-ROM titles, so we can't be real harsh here. At least Vivid tried something else or something different here, and it turned out to be quite something already. So, that counts!

Fun fact: for those that don't like playing the mini games in order to win tickets and unlock XXX clips, all the unlockable videos are also inside a folder in regular (.mov) video file format.

One could simply double click on any of those video files to play them right away in any media player software.

But I guess that would be considered cheating, ha! ;)

Finally, it's time to dive into the gameplay...

Ski Balls

There's three mini games to pick from. That being, the first called "Ski Balls", followed by "Cumshoot", and the third option is called "Lust Hammer".

Let's start at the top and check out mini game number one, aka Ski Balls.

Again, it's gameplay mixed with FMV clips of live action pornstars, and of course, Pimpy the clown.

In this mini game called Ski Balls, we'll get to throw balls and score points. As simple as that. And yeah, the game is exactly that. Boringly simple.

Also, I have no clue how the gameplay mechanics work here. I just used the mouse to point and drag and throw one of the balls from the side until all balls have been thrown, while hoping I get lucky.

And lucky I got, a very few times. Lots of times though, I failed misserably. When you do fail, Pimpy the clown and a pornstar are quick to point out where to aim the balls at.

"Not here... here!" - To quote the spread-legged pornstar on screen, while she first points to her bare naked pussy, then points at the target right after.

Sure, thanks for the game explanation, but I got that part already. Still, thanks for the nudity. :)

When you do strike gold and win plenty of tickets, Pimpy will also popup on screen telling you that you're "the man"! Thanks again, Pimpy... I needed that!

Cumshoot

Oh look, it's the classic Space Invaders game but now you're controlling and shooting from a penis instead of a spaceship.

Nice! Haven't seen that one done before. Oh wait, we did, actually...

In the video above you'll get to see another "space invaders" clone for adults, titled: Kiss 'n Kill.

Doesn't matter though, some concepts never get old.

So, instead of invading aliens, we're now shooting, moving, half naked pornstar babes, and from time to time, close-up female mouths. Yeah, I didn't make this up.

The goal of the game is to shoot as much "enemies" on screen to win rewards (tickets to unlock sex scenes) and get treated to more eye-candy.

Hammer of Lust

The old circus and carnival game, the ultimate test of strength! Just grab the hammer and smash it as hard as you can! Of course, once again, featuring pornstars and Pimpy the clown.

The third and final mini game on this disc is the (old school) carnival hammer game, (also known as a High Striker or Strongman) the kind of an attraction still popular and used in funfairs, amusement parks, even today.

This one mini game is weird as hell as well, in terms of gameplay... How do I control this thing?

I tried dragging the mouse cursor in various speeds, I held down the mouse button long and short periods of time, before releasing it, but I can't seem to figure out what the "right way" is to control the hammer in this actual mini game.

How am I suppose to make the perfect, hard-hitting strike, so I'll get to strike gold with the ladies on-screen?

No freakin' clue, to be honest. I continued clicking in random speeds until I won enough, or more like, seen enough of the nudity in the FMV clips popping on my monitor and quickly gave up afterwards.

To me, it felt like the result of Lust Hammer was all random. Not entirely sure though, maybe I'm just an idiot and don't know how to play this one.

Overall Gameplay experience

With as little only 3 mini games and a bunch of video clips available for the player to enjoy, it's safe to say that the real selling point of this CD-ROM game from back in the day, really was the porn video part. Because in terms of actual "gaming" or actual gameplay, Vivid Entertainment's release of Circus Of Love doesn't offer a whole lot of fun gaming experience here.

Barely any actual gameplay is to be found on this disc, really.

The game feels more like one of those early internet, Flash mini-games, you could find and play online during the late 90s and early 2000.

Remember how I mentioned before, don't forget this game got released in 1996. At that time, shovelware CD-ROM's were flooding the market. Because people would buy literally anything anyway. While producers were burning any type of digital files onto a CD disc, from shareware and demo game compilations to screensavers or desktop wallpapers. All for the sake of making a quick buck.

1996 PC gaming was such a completely different era. Back then, people would buy literally anything on CD-ROM, because it was the new, cool thing in town. And yes, porn on CD-ROM, for a short time period at least, was even considered "the future" or "the next big thing".

Of course, this has a reason... as we've just went from 1.44 megabyte free space on a floppy disk, to suddenly having 600+ megabytes available on CD-ROM discs instead.

And thus, compared to floppy's, CD's now offered enough free space for interactive media, such as, you've guessed it - video clips.

Still, I got to give Vivid Interactive credit for trying different markets outside of the regular (upcoming) online porn, VHS and adult film DVD market. During the 90s, Vivid did develop and release various adult videogames for systems such a PC gamers, as well as releasing a bunch of erotic game titles targeted at the short-lived 3DO game console.

Some of Vivid's 3DO gaming titles from back in the day, include: Blonde Justice, The Coven, Mind Teazzer, Immortal Desire and Love Bites.

While not the biggest success, props for expanding markets and giving it a try, at least.

That said, this retro, adult game, didn't turn out to be "the future", nor "the next big thing", to say the least... But the fact such adult game title even was made, released or simply exists, is just awesome, in my books.

Vivid Entertainment/Vivid Interactive had balls to try and release something different and unique like this. Sadly, the game itself just lacks effort. The main selling point was too much focused on "porn on a CD", rather than actual gameplay.

And well, that selling point might have worked during the 90s, in the current day and age though, that just don't fly anymore...

Why I had to review this adult CD-ROM game, though? Mostly for the lack of info online.

It's such a completely weird, one of a kind, adult retro game... The type of game that shouldn't exists, right?

But then again, somehow it does! Yet nobody seems to mention it anywhere on the web and that's just a shame.

Whether or not people would have actually enjoyed playing this retro porn game though, back in the day? I doubt that, honestly!

But on the other hand... Would they likely be showing off this game to all their buddies back then when it was released? Probably! Perhaps, even proudly! Even if they did not, Circus of Love still is an awesome, little collectors item, in my opinion.

I mean, who wouldn't show off a physical copy and brag about a game like Circus Of Love, especially to his buddies after drinking couple of beers, right? I probably would.

I mean, I like to show off my retro adult game collection to basically anybody who drops by, even if they show zero interest at all hihi.

Well, speaking of showing off, it's kinda exactly what I'm doing to all my readers right now... Showcasing this little weird, cool, hidden gem from the past. ;)