Yase Plays: High Times
When I met John and Dani, the CEOs of the Filipino indie game studio Yangyang Mobile at Gamescom 3 years ago, I had no idea what was awaiting me when I was introduced to an early demo of a Visual Novel called „High Times“.
Previously known for their successful horror visual novel „The Letter“, curiosity packed me and I approached their booth in the business area.
Seated in a chair, I was immediatly greeted by lively and saturated colors amazing art work and the – at the time nameless and thus named John Doe (which unintentionally made them hilarious) - main character who was left to take care of a Donut Café that serves „special Donuts“.
Now you might think „What makes the donuts so special anyway?
Is it the glazing? The filling? The sprinkles?“ and the answer is...
Well, yes! Everything!
Because it turns out our dear main character bakes mood altering Donuts. We're talking the good stuff. And this is where the developers put the „high“ in High Times. Being a lover of the good type of weirdness and silliness and humor thats kind of all over the place with the narrative and the characters in this game. I was instantly on board and I wasted no time at all wishlisting High Times on Steam with high anticipation, pun unintended.
At Gamescom 2024 I met John again and Co-Founder Danni Ann and was overjoyed to receive news that development had been progressing well and that more characters and voice acting had been implemented.
Starting the game our MC was now customizable! Selectable gender, many hairstyles for both female and male appearing selection, different facial expressions and of course varying colors for hair and eyes as well as skin tones.
Jump to Gamescom 2025 and High Times had made it out of the business area and into the bustling halls of the Indie Game Arena with a beautiful booth, resembling the very café, you sell delightful donuts in!
Pink, giant donut decorating the wall and all!
After years of hard work and so much effort, the demo had made significant progress. Fully voice acted with a star cast (Johnny Young Bosch, aka Ichigo from Bleach being only one of them), more dialogue option and story, more exes to avoid and more food creator options, Yang Yang Mobile and High Times were SO back!
And now finally in 2026, after 3 long years of testing upgraded demos, meeting more and more amazing members at Yang Yang Mobile, watching the wonderful team make it out of the business area into the indie arena with their own huge booth and many many fans, I finally got my hands on a Steam Key – thank you guys so so much – to finally fully play the game, review it and find out why the hell my boss would leave me completely broke and alone with our donut shop and my horrible exes.
Game start!
High Times begins in the imaginary Filipino city of San Mazo in the year 2069, with our main character, who as mentioned before works as a so-called “mood confectioner“ in a special Donut Café named so wonderfully “the Hot Box“.
You take on their role – the character is customizable so whether you identify as female, nonbinary or male, it's all possible.
You go on about your sometimes more and sometimes less messy day. bake and sell some “magic bullet“ donuts to customers who walk in with their day-to-day life burdens and issues.
May that be millionaires taxing us all for toilet paper, beef on social media or the catastrophic event of accidentally sending fanfiction to your boss and being fired.
And if all that wasn't already a load of pecuilar problems to deal with,
the cherry on top is that you then come to find out that your boss has left you the “Hot Box“ unsupervised and unpaid, because he up and married without letting anyone know or any date as to when he will return – Seriously, did anyone even know this guy was dating somebody?!
And if you're now at a point where you think things could not get any wackier than what I have already been vividly describing... one after the other super special customer starts popping up at your register from down under the great abyss of your dating past:
Your 7 evil exes.
...Except it is 6.
And one is your childhood friend and you never dated.
One more different and all over the place than the last.
And of course, since this is a cooking simulator, they too have their very specific wishes, issues and more or less complicated feelings and orders you need to fulfill.
Let's get to the game mechanics:
High Times is a interactive visual novel, cooking game and dating sim. There is a lot of dialogue to read and the entire game is voice acted, but it really is a lot of reading so don't hop on in the boat if you're not ready for lengthy and – more or less - deep narratives that require your presence and attention. And I promise it is worth it, as the writers put their entire foot in it! The dialogue is very engaging, never boring or dragging and incredibly funny and enjoyable with querky reply options and characters whose musings are guaranteed to catch you off-guard more than once! The calming and vibrant OST that always accompanies through your cooking and socializing ventures also aids in making the entire progress even smoother and worth investigating your time, especially in this cold and gray weather currently, who wouldn't want warm, colorful donuts that enhance the mood right now?
High Times comes with full controller and mouse support and puts you into a vibrant environment that is the “Hot Box“. You take orders and in the kitchen in point, click and drag motions fold donut dough, fry it and then glaze the donuts with different toppings and frostings.
Depending on the customers wishes the donuts can also be made in different shapes and decorated with more garnishes than just one.
Get the order right, unlock more dialogue options, raise your friendship or romance level witht he according customer and unlock their social media profiles on the game's super cool in-game phone UI,
which you can use to make purchases in the form of ingredients and decoratons for the restaurant, browse social media and stalk your exes, customers and friends and unlock other cool features that are another engaging way to enjoy the game outside of the cooking mechanics and multiple choice dialogues with characters.
If I could pique your interest with my review of this wonderfully fun and addicting game even a little, I am heavily inclined to advice you guys go to Steam and look up High Times, wishlist it, play the demo for yourselves and also give Yang Yang Mobile a follow on their socialsl inked below.
High Times is available across all platforms except mobile and was just a part of Steam's Cooking Fest and still available there as well for just $19.99, a steal!
In a bundle deal you can also get the official soundtrack and artbook.
Yase out!
High Times on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2251220/High_Times/
High Times on Yang Yang Mobile Official Website: https://yangyangmobile.com/
Yang Yang Mobile Official BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/yangyangmobile.bsky.social
Yang Yang Mobile Official Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yangyangmobile/
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